


You Could Have Knocked Me Out With a Feather

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Divorce, Endgame Megstiel, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, F/M, Fights, Love Confessions, Love Triangles, M/M, Unhappy Ending, Unhappy marriage, Unrequited Love, background Sam Winchester/Sarah Blake - Freeform, past Kelly Kline/Lucifer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-25 19:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13841574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: After seven years, Castiel and Dean's marriage is on the rocks. Dean has a successful business remodeling classic cars like he always dreamed, but it barely leaves him any free time to spend with his husband. On his part, Castiel is starting to spend too much time with the spunky Meg Masters, a student at his college finishing her PhD. As the routine and the fights wear them out, is it possible for them to salvage their relationship?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's disclaimer: I usually don't write Destiel as it isn't one of my favorite ships. This was written at a friend's request and it will be angsty and it's probably not going to end up happily. Please keep those things in mind as you go into this fic.

Castiel came home earlier that Friday. They had exchanged Valentine’s gifts earlier in the week, but Dean had been working nonstop for the last few days and he had mentioned he wouldn’t have time to go out on a date like they’d done other years. Castiel had decided to do something special for his husband either way. If they couldn’t go out for a romantic candlelit dinner, he would bring the romance into their home. He texted Dean asking what time he would be home and the answer gave him plenty of time to prepare everything.

Cooking wasn’t his strong suit, but he tried either way: he cooked the pasta and followed the careful instructions he found on the Internet to prepare the sauce and the meatballs. Dean was a simple guy who enjoyed burgers and sandwiches, but Castiel wanted that night to be special and for some reason, it occurred to him that pasta was romantic. Ten minutes into cooking it, he had a slight crisis of confidence about what he should have prepared, but he pressed on anyway.

He served the food in the nice china his sister had gifted to them when they got married, he set the nice white tablecloth and set the long red candles in the middle of the table. He would hurry to turn them on the moment he heard Dean’s car pulling up on the driveway. He stepped back to look at his work and nodded to himself. For someone who usually ate his takeaway on the coffee table in the living room, this was going out of the way. Exactly what he intended. He dimmed the dining room’s light and went to sit on the couch, anxiously checking the time in his cellphone and imagining that Dean would be leaving his office right now, saying goodnight to his employees, getting on his car, driving home…

Eight o’clock came and went, but Castiel tried not to make a big deal out of it. Maybe he was delayed for some reason, there was always a last minute emergency that he had to tend to. He would deal with it and then he would come back.

At eight thirty, the food was cold, but it could be reheated still, so it wasn’t a problem. Castiel toyed with his cellphone, wondering if he should send Dean a text asking where he was. Then again, it wasn’t unusual. The workshop had opened a new branch last year. Dean had promised Castiel that his schedules would go back to normal as soon as the place was up and running, but the inauguration had been months ago and Dean was still leaving home early in the morning coming back late at night. It was understandable, but Castiel still wished they could spend as much time together as they used to.

Maybe that was the reason this dinner was so important to him.

At nine, Castiel stood up, put the food in tupperwares and stored it away in the fridge. He was afraid it would get ruined if Dean was going to take too long, but again, it didn’t matter. It could be reheated. He came back to the couch and continued checking his phone. There was no text from Dean announcing that he would be late. Castiel turned on the TV to drown out his thoughts, ignoring the growling in his stomach indicating that it was way past dinner time.

Around nine thirty, Castiel started getting worried. What if something had happened to Dean? What if he was driving home and he got in an accident of some kind? Castiel picked up his phone and quickly fired a text, his eyes taking in the minutes as the newscaster continued to mindless babble on and on about something that was of little interest to him.

It took Dean exactly seven minutes to respond:

_Sorry, babe, something came up. Don’t wait up._

The relief Castiel felt was quickly replaced by irritation and then by a sense of terrible, unrelenting exhaustion. He washed the nice china and put it back in the highest shelf in the kitchen. He considered leaving the candles and the tablecloth outside so Dean would know that he had been planning a surprise for him and he had ruined it by not showing up. But then again, what would be the point? To be passive-aggressive? To pick up another fight after they had been having some few good weeks?

He hadn’t eaten, but the sadness had put knots in his stomach and his throat, so he didn’t think he could swallow anything. He brushed his teeth and stared for a long time at the man in the mirror.

He still had the same blue eyes that had inspired Dean’s first terrible pick up line, but there were little wrinkles around them now that hadn’t been there ten years prior. His body was still in shape: he went running every morning and to the gym once a week. And yet, he felt like it had been months since the last time Dean had laid a hand on him or given him a kiss, a kiss that wasn’t a rushed peck on the lips as he hurried towards the door.

Castiel rolled his eyes at himself and left the bathroom irritated again. He wasn’t some 1950’s neglected housewife, if he wanted his husband to show him some affection, he could simply coax it out of him.

He had fallen into a sleepy stupor when he finally heard the Dean’s Impala distinctive roar and not long after, Dean’s steps in the stairs. He stayed in the bed, laying on his side and watching the hallway light seeping underneath the bedroom’s door. A few minutes later, the toilet flushed and Dean tiptoed inside, undressed and sat on the other side of the bed.

Castiel lifted up his head as if he hadn’t been awake the entire time.

“Hey,” he said to the back of his husband’s head.

Dean startled a little, as he turned around. Castiel could barely make out his features in the room’s darkness.

“Hey, babe,” he muttered. “Sorry. There was this emergency and… well, I had to fix it or we’d have hell to pay for it on Monday. You know how these rich assholes are about their cars…”

“It’s okay,” Castiel said, sitting up and putting his hand over Dean’s. “It doesn’t matter.”

Dean’s lips were soft and warm. Castiel breathed in the scent of his sweat and his shaving cream, sighing at the soft, familiar feeling that still could get his heart beat faster. Dean put a hand on his cheek and returned the kiss, his tongue brushing softly against Castiel’s, but when Castiel lifted his to place it behind his husband’s neck, Dean moved back and shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I’m tired. I had a long day.”

The knot in Castiel’s stomach, that had begun to loosen up somehow when he smelled Dean’s scent, tightened right up again.

“Oh,” he muttered. “That’s… that’s alright.”

“I’ll make it up to you this weekend.”

“It’s alright, Dean.”

He supposed there was nothing else to say. He moved away and fell back over the pillows, closing his eyes. Dean didn’t try to kiss him away or wake him up. He simply got under the covers and rolled over a couple of times. When the mattress stopped moving and Castiel dared to look, he saw that Dean was fast asleep with his back turned to him.

 

* * *

 

The spring months leading up to the summer used to be Castiel’s favorites. The bleakness of winter finally started to recede, the days became longer and warmer, there were students all around campus freaking out and cramming for finals. Despite being already a few months into the new year, perhaps because he was a professor, Castiel always thought as April and May as the months to review the past year and start thinking about new resolutions.

Except that year he didn’t feel like doing any of that. As he sat on his favorite bench near the library and unwrapped his lunch (a chicken and veggies sandwich), he had the terrible, uneasy feeling that he would fail to fulfill any resolution that he’d set. He hadn’t managed to keep last year’s ones past the summer and honestly, this one wasn’t looking up to be any better.

He bit into his lunch, his mind still coming back to that morning’s conversation over and over.

It had started so well. Dean was humming to himself, in a good mood as he checked the news on his phone. Castiel had put a mug of coffee next to him and Dean had thanked him with one of his radiant grins and a wink. So Castiel had thought it was the perfect time to bring up something he had been thinking about for a few weeks now.

“Where do you think we should go this year for our road trip?”

Dean had frozen, and, slowly, risen his head to look at Castiel.

"What do you mean?"

"Our... our road trip," Castiel had insisted. He'd kept on smiling despite Dean's baffled tone. As if he didn't know what he meant. "You know, we can start planning routes and tourist places that we can go to..."

Dean had put his phone down and rubbed his temples. That also wasn't a good sign for Castiel.

"Yeah... I'm sorry, babe. I don't think we can make it this year."

Castiel had been shocked by that affirmation. He didn't want to fight, he really didn't. God knew the last thing their marriage needed was another fight. But he always looked forwards to that road trip with Dean, to the weeks when there was no one but them, the open road and the engine of Dean's Impala purring with them. He didn't like how his husband was being so dismissive about it. So instead of biting his tongue like he did so many times, he'd decided to say something about it.

He should've known it wasn't going to end well.

"What do you mean?" he'd asked. "Dean, last year you were so busy we had to postpone it until August and cut it short. I thought this year..."

"It's not going to be any different, Cas," Dean had cut him off. "The business needs my attention and if we do it, it's just gonna end up being like last year all over again. Is that what you want?"

The silence that followed had been unbearable. Castiel had put his hands around his coffee mug and stared into the dark liquid for a very long time, trying not to break down crying or screaming. At that point, he wasn't sure which was better.

"No," he'd admitted in the end.

"Didn't think so," Dean had said.

It was his tone that'd set Castiel off. He loved the man, he really did. But sometimes he talked with this condescending tone, as if he thought Castiel couldn't understand the simplest of things. As if he needed to explain everything to him and it was so insulting, so infuriating, that it just stepped on Castiel's every single nerve.

"It doesn't mean we shouldn't go ahead and do it anyway. It's better than nothing."

Dean had looked up at the ceiling as if he was asking for patience.

"I don't have time for this right now, Cas." He'd stood up and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. "We'll talk about it tonight when I get home, okay?"

The way the door had slammed in Dean's wake still echoed through Castiel's mind.

"Can I sit here?"

Castiel realized he had been staring at his sandwich without taking a bite for the last few seconds. He looked up to see there was a black-haired woman standing right in front of him. She was wearing jeans and a leather jacket, with a backpack swung over her shoulder. A student, he deduced.

"Umh... yes, of course."

He scooted over the bench and immediately wondered why he had done such a thing. He wasn't finished eating his lunch and thinking about how he was going to bring up his worries to Dean without provoking another fight. He didn't want any sort of company right now.

But maybe he would be lucky and the girl would just sit in silence and let him go back to his ruminations. For a couple of seconds, it seemed that would be the case: she didn't even glance at him as she opened her back pack and took out a small plastic container. But as soon as she sat up again and put the bag on her lap, she turned to him with a friendly smile.

"Hi, I'm Megan Masters. You can call me Meg," she said, extending a hand towards him.

Castiel suddenly was aware that he had been holding unto a greasy sandwich for the past minutes. He awkwardly picked up a tissue from his pocket and hastily rubbed them in an attempt to make them less gross to hold before he accepted the shake.

"I'm Castiel Milton," he introduced himself.

"Oh, I know who you are, Professor Milton," she said. Her smile was all teeth and it shone with satisfaction. "They told me I could find you around here."

Castiel wondered who it had been and if he could accuse them of high treason. He didn't appreciate to have his lunch interrupted, but Meg seemed to know this because after that, she went back to pay attention to her lunch as if they’d said nothing at all. He watched her as she sank the plastic fork in the salad inside her container and chewed slowly, ignoring him completely.

She was trying to pique his curiosity. And it was working.

“Why were you looking for me?”

Meg took her time: she swallow what she was eating and wiped her mouth with a napkin before turning to look at him. Castiel couldn’t help but to notice she had beautiful brown eyes.

“Well, I am currently pursuing my PhD here, and since I’m in your area of study I thought perhaps we should get to know each other.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes at her.

“I’m not currently looking for a TA,” he informed her. “I’m also not helping anyone with their thesis for the time being as I’m working on a book myself…”

“Oh, I know all this,” Meg interrupted him. “I already have a thesis director. Professor Alistair Black.”

That only disconcerted him even further. Alistair was one of his oldest colleagues, though Castiel couldn’t say he was his favorite one. He had a fame for torturing students who took his courses to the point where he was the reason many of them ended up dropping out or pursuing a different degree. Castiel imagined he was also that harsh as a thesis director, but Meg didn’t look nearly suicidal enough.

And even so…

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Alistair counseling anyone on their thesis.”

“That just means I’m pretty special, doesn’t it?” Meg replied, with a smirk.

Despite the interruption, Castiel found himself smiling at that. He liked the drawl in Meg’s speech, the way she accentuated the ‘s’, making her voice sound like a smoky whisper all the time. He liked that she didn’t seem scared to deal with professors with terrible reputations and that she was smart enough to cajole him into conversing with her despite his famous anti-social tendencies.

Perhaps what he liked the most, though, was that talking to her distracted him from less pleasant issues.

“So what’s your thesis about?”

Meg had majored in English, with a minor on Gender Studies, and she was currently writing about the influence of feminism on modern romance novels.

That disconcerted Castiel even more.

“Are you sure that Alistair is your director?”

Meg threw her head back and laugh. She sounded adorably evil as she did.

“The power of nepotism. My dad is an old friend of his and he made a generous donation to the college. Basically, Alistair lets me write whatever I please and he’ll just… sign whatever papers that need to be signed.”

She was cheeky and unashamed by her scheming. He should be scandalized by how she was flaunting her capacity to disregard rules. Instead, he found it charming.

“Anyway,” she continued, after taking another bite of her salad. “The real reason I approached you was because I need one of the books you used as reference for your _Female American Authors of the Nineteenth Century_.”

“Oh, you’ve read that.” Castiel blushed. It had been one of his earliest ventures into academic writing. He still remembered exactly what Dean had asked when he had told him the topic _: ‘Why the hell are you writing about bitter old spinsters?’_

“I devoured it,” Meg affirmed. She didn’t sound like she was trying to flatter him. It was a simple statement that she didn’t even dwell on: “So do you still have Josie Sands’ biography of Emilie Dickinson? Because I’ve been looking for that edition and I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

“Of course. I’ll gladly lend it to you.”

Meg’s smirk grew into a full on grin.

“Excellent.”

 

* * *

 

Castiel poured down the food in his plate and moved to sit on the couch. He was about to reach for the remote when the door clicked open and he froze. Dean hanged his keys and took off his jacket with a sigh. He stopped in the middle of the lobby, staring back at Castiel as if he had been as caught by surprise as his husband.

“Are you just gonna eat that there?” Dean asked after a few seconds, raising an eyebrow.

Castiel felt the blood rush to his cheeks.

“I didn’t know you were coming home early,” he explained. Usually Dean ate in his office or on the way home and by the time he showed up, Castiel was already in bed curling up with a book.

They were more like roommates who happened to sleep on the same bed lately. The thought depressed him.

“Yeah, well.” Dean shrugged. “Since I’m here, how about we have an actual dinner?”

Castiel looked down at his takeaway and wondered why he wasn’t jumping at the chance. He was hungry and the very idea of having to get up, fetch the tablecloth and eat on a dish exhausted him.

But… Dean was there early. Castiel couldn’t be selfish about this, not when it could mean that they’d start having dinner together again after so long. This was what he’d been wanting, so he smiled and picked up his takeaway from the coffee table.

“Of course.”

“A little slow there, eh, Cas?”

Castiel felt his mocking tone like a prickle in his back, but he refused to take issue with this. He had to pick his battles and this wasn’t something worth getting worked up about. Dean made that sort of joke often, he was used to them. He hastily took some chicken out of the fridge that he had been meaning to cook for a couple of days. He usually wasn’t the one to prepare the home cooked meals, but Dean was rummaging through the fridge for a beer. He took it out and sat on the isle while watching Castiel move through the kitchen, so he clearly he was too tired to help.

“We’ll have grilled chicken and a salad, if that’s okay with you,” he told Dean as he turned on the stove. “I really had nothing prepared and I only ordered food for one. You really should’ve told me you were coming home, I would have gone for groceries after leaving the school…”

“It’s fine.” Dean sipped his beer in silence while Castiel chopped the chicken and the vegetables and carelessly tossed them on the pan. He remained in silence for so long that it became uncomfortable, so Castiel cleared his throat.

“So… how was your day?”

Dean let out a long, drawn out sigh.

“You really wanna know about that?”

“I mean… if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine,” Castiel replied, shrugging. “It was just a question.”

Dean groaned softly, but whatever it was that had irritated him about that dialogue, he decided not to comment on it. After another pause in which the only thing filling the silence was the sizzling of the grill and the clatter of Castiel chopping the tomatoes, Dean finally said what was on his mind:

“Listen, Cas. About this morning…”

Castiel turned off the stove and served the chicken on the dishes without making a comment or giving out any signs that he had heard Dean. If his husband had something in his mind, he could speak for himself without Castiel prompting him.

Dean sighed deeply.

“I’m sorry I blew you off, okay?” he started. “I’m sorry if you felt hurt about that.”

Castiel still said nothing. He had been hurt, of course, but the fact Dean didn’t just outright admitted it was really irking him. He threw the tomatoes and some lettuce in a bowl and started mixing them.

“But you gotta understand, my hands are tied. I wish I could go to the road trip with you instead of having to stay and work over the summer, but it’s just not possible.”

Castiel settled down the bowl between the two dishes. It was pointless to argue. And he really was tired and hungry, so between keep pressuring Dean on the road trip and one peaceful dinner, he chose the latter.

“I understand that, Dean.”

“Thank you,” Dean sighed. “I’ll make it up to you.”

He got up from his stool with his beer still in hand and turned towards the dining room. Castiel stared at the back of his head for what felt the longest time.

“When?”

The word was enough to get Dean to stop on his tracks and look at her husband again.

“What?”

“When will you make it up to me?” Castiel asked. “Because you keep saying that. You keep… coming home late and forgetting dates. And you keep saying you will make it up to me, but you still haven’t even said if we’ll go out since you missed our Valentine’s Day date.”

“Seriously? Still with that?” Dean rolled his eyes. “That was like a month ago, Castiel!”

“Exactly. An entire month and you still have done nothing to ‘make it up to me’.” Castiel drew air quotes, knowing full well he was coming off as sarcastic and completely ruining the peaceful dinner he wanted to have.

Dean shook his head and raised his arms.

“You think I’d rather be on the workshop working my ass off than here spending time with you?” he said. “All that I’m doing, I’m doing for us. I wanted us to stay in our apartment, but you said you wanted a big house somewhere nice…”

“I wanted a big house because I want us to have children one day, Dean,” Castiel reminded him. “But you also keep putting that off, saying we’ll have time later, but when will ‘later’ be?”

Dean rubbed his face with one hand and shook his head.

“I don’t have to listen to this,” he concluded.

“Yes, you do. Dean, this is important to me. Where are you going?”

Dean didn’t bother to answer. He was already walking away. The sound of him setting down his beer on the coffee table was deafening.

“Dean!”

“I don’t know, Cas!” Dean shouted back. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this!”

He picked up his keys and slammed the door in his wake.

Castiel remained rooted to his spot on the kitchen, his heart pounding in his chest and his breathing agitated. He looked down at the bowl of salad in front of him.

Later, he told himself his attitude was childish and that he’d won nothing by doing what he did except for an extra hour awake cleaning.

But at that moment, throwing the stupid bowl against the wall felt almost good.


	2. Chapter 2

Meg was already waiting for him. He saw her through the window of the café. She had tied her long black hair in a messy bun behind her head and she was wearing another vaporous blouse. She hunched over a book that apparently consumed her attention, because even when Castiel walked in and stood near her table, she didn’t raise her head. So he had a few seconds to stare at the curve of her neck and the way her lips were pursed in concentration.

He cleared his throat and she finally snapped out of it, looking at him and promptly smiling when she realized who it was.

“Hey, professor,” she said, closing the book and putting it away on her backpack.

“I told you, you can call me Cas,” he replied. He sat in front of her and took out the book from his briefcase.

He supposed he could have waited a moment longer to do that. Meg had asked to meet with Emily Dickinson’s biography as an excuse, but perhaps she just wanted that from him and nothing else. If that was the case, he would leave. He didn’t want to intrude on her lunch, even though she had done the same thing to him just a couple of days back.

“Ah, thank you! Are you gonna need it back soon?” she asked, but she immediately made it disappear inside of her backpack as well.

“No, take your time…”

“What can I get you?”

The waitress next to him with a notepad in her hand startled Castiel.

“Uh… I was going to…”

“Try the cinnamon latte, it’s delicious,” Meg suggested, raising her own plastic cup as if to prove it. But immediately she set it back down again. “Unless you have elsewhere to be?”

Castiel tried to bite back a smile. So this was, after all, an invitation to lunch.

“No, not at all. I think I will try that beverage. And perhaps a sandwich?”

Meg’s eyes glimmered with satisfaction.

She was just as charming as smart as she had been on their first encounter. She talked about her thesis and her hopes of being accepted at the college once her PhD was completed. She had a family in the city (a brother and her father. She didn’t mention a mother and Castiel didn’t dare to ask), but she was hoping to stay in town on a more permanent basis. For now, she was crashing on a friend’s couch and going back on the weekends.

“It’s not that I don’t like being there, you know? But Tom and his fiancée are always going on about the wedding and dad… well, he isn’t around a lot. He’s working on having Senator Lilith Crowley reelected, so… he’s busy.”

She made it sound like she didn’t precisely like this fact. She shifted her eyes and took a gulp from her second latte as if she was reminding herself that she had spoken too much.

“You don’t like him being busy?” Castiel asked, tilting his head.

“It’s not a matter of whether I like it or not,” Meg sighed. “I’m twenty-eight years old, I should be over being daddy’s little girl. But I really miss when we were best friends, you know? Just… all the time we used to spend together.” She stopped and shook her head. “Look at me, complaining to you about this. You must be thinking _‘Oh, poor rich girl, daddy didn’t hug her enough…’_ ”

“No!” Castiel cut her off, rather forcefully. He cleared his throat and tried to speak on a more normal tone: “No, I… I understand completely. I’m… actually going through something similar with my husband.”

Meg raised an eyebrow.

“Really?”

“You probably don’t want to hear about it.” Castiel grimaced. “I’m sorry I brought it up at all.”

“Please, you heard _me_ complaining. It’s the least I can do,” Meg said. “Besides, I’m nosy.”

Castiel let out a chuckle and considered it. But before he knew it, he was telling her all about it: how Dean was always working late (his business of restoring classic cars attracted some very demanding clientele, as he kept telling Castiel) and how he was never home and when he was home, they usually fought over the least important things. And even when they weren’t fighting, he felt as if he was tense, as if he was waiting for something to just go off.

“… and it’s been going on for a while now,” he concluded. “Just the other day, Dean stormed off to his brother’s house and when he came back the following morning, well… neither of us felt like talking.”

“How long have you been with this guy again?”

“Ten years.” Castiel sighed. “We were together for three before we got married and… sometimes it’s hard to believe it’s been that long.”

He realized he had been toying with his wedding band and stopped, forcing himself to close his fist and resting them on his knees.

“Well, I don’t want to make presumptions about how your relationship works,” Meg said. “But maybe you should try couples’ therapy.”

“You think it could be of help?”

“Like I said, I don’t want to assume anything. I just know that if a boyfriend was treating me the way your husband is treating you, I would be out of the door like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“Oh, I could never leave Dean.”

“Well, yeah. That’s why maybe couples’ therapy could be good.”

Castiel watched her closely. It was odd, that he had known her for such a short time and he’d been able to tell her all those things with such ease. He couldn’t talk them over with Dean, nor with anyone from his admittedly limited circle of friends.

And it felt good, to express those worries out loud without someone nagging at him that he was making a fuss about nothing or about things that were beyond his control. Meg recognized that something was wrong and he was right to be worried. She had even offered a possible solution and he was thankful to her for that. He opened his mouth to say so…

“Will that be all or can I bring you something else?”

Castiel had been so enthralled by his chat with Meg he had completely lost track of time and of how many cinnamon lattes he had drunk.

“Oh, no. I’m sorry. I’m going to be late for my afternoon class…”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to make you late.” Meg groaned and took out her wallet. “Let me pay for that.”

She didn’t even have to protest or to tell her to at least let him cover his part. She passed the bills to the waitress and pick up her backpack from the floor.

And that was all, Castiel guessed.

He was only mildly surprised to discover that Meg’s ride was a black motorcycle she had parked right outside the café. It suited her. She extracted a helmet the keys from a pocket of her backpack that seemed to be as bottomless as Mary Poppins’ and started the process of unlocking the padlock.

“Do you want me to give you a lift?” she offered.

“Uh… thanks, but… I’m not fond of those things.”

She chuckled and put the helmet on, but he could still see her eyes through the visor. Again, it occurred to him that they were a lovely shade of brown, bright and just a little mischievous.

“I really enjoyed spending time with you today,” he blurted out before he even knew what he was saying. “Maybe we could… do this again?”

Meg’s eyebrows rose, but it was hard to tell if she was surprised or not.

“Am I growing on you, Professor Milton?”

Castiel scratched the back of his neck.

“I mean, since your thesis director is basically symbolic, perhaps you could benefit from having someone else to discuss your doubts with.”

Meg passed a leg over her motorcycle and kicked the accelerator.

“Sounds fun,” she said. “Besides, you owe me a lunch.”

She lowered her helmet’s visors and guided her motorcycle towards the street. Despite his lateness, Castiel stayed where he was watching the back of her of her head until she disappeared around the corner.

 

* * *

 

It was a few days after his lunch with Meg that Castiel finally breached the subject to Dean. It was Sunday and one of the rare days they were both at home. There was a point in their marriage when lazy Sundays meant they would spend the day in bed together. Now it meant Castiel would be reviewing essays or otherwise reading in up in his studio while Dean stayed downstairs in front of the TV to catch up with all the wrestling matches he’d missed during the week. He hated to interrupt Dean’s entertainment, but Castiel knew there would be very little chances for him to have this conversation without Dean running away from it.

He waited until his husband was comfortably installed in the couch to approach him with a beer in hand. He extended it towards Dean and had to wait a few seconds before his husband realized what was happening.

“Thanks, babe,” he muttered, without taking his eyes off the TV as he took a gulp out of the bottle.

“Dean,” Castiel started, but his voice must have come out too low, because Dean didn’t look at him or gave any signs of having heard him. Castiel took a deep breath: “Dean, can I talk to you about something?”

Dean blinked, glanced at him and then back at the TV. It took him two seconds too long to decide that yes, he needed to pause the match for what Castiel had to say.

“Sure,” he said in the end. He pressed a button on the remote and the TV went silent. “What’s the matter?”

Castiel moved aside the bowl of popcorn Dean had placed on the coffee table and sat down so he could face his husband.

“I think we should go to couples’ therapy,” he said quickly. Dean’s face remained expressionless, so Castiel started talking even faster: “I’ve been researching and I’ve found this doctor who comes very highly recommended. I called and he can give us an appointment in a couple of weeks…”

“Woah, woah, Cas.” Dean sat up straight, his green eyes now directly on Castiel’s face. “What are you saying? We don’t need to go to some shrink that’s gonna rob us blind. We’re fine.”

Castiel was taken aback by such an openly untrue statement. It must have shown in his face, because Dean raised his eyes at the ceiling for a moment, the way he always did when he thought Castiel was being excessively dramatic about something.

“Okay, we… bicker. But all couples do. It’s normal.”

“I know that, Dean. But I was thinking maybe… it will help us to figure out why we’re fighting so much lately,” Castiel explained. “And how to do it less. Because I don’t like fighting with you.”

Dean’s features softened somewhat as he leaned forwards and put a hand on Castiel’s knee.

“I don’t like fighting with you either. But going to see a shrink…”

“I know you don’t believe therapy is effective,” Castiel cut him off. He knew Dean well enough to know exactly what his concerns were. “But this was suggested to me and I think we lose nothing by trying.”

Dean’s green eyes became slits.

“Who suggested it?”

“A friend,” Castiel said, avoiding Dean’s gaze. But then he realized he was being silly. Why did it matter if he had a new friend or not? “Her name’s Meg. You don’t know her.”

“I know all of your friends…” Dean began protesting.

“Don’t change the subject,” Castiel interrupted him. “Please? Just one session and if you don’t think that it’s worth it, we don’t have to go back.”

Dean bit the interior of his cheek. Just as Castiel suspected, he wasn’t happy with the idea, but at least he didn’t get mad about it.

“Fine,” he agreed finally. “One session.”

Castiel breathed out in relief. He wasn’t sure what he would’ve done had Dean refused. But him accepting, despite all his reservations towards therapy, meant a lot to Castiel. It meant Dean was just as willing to fix what had broken between them as Castiel was. It gave him hope.

Dean smiled, the same cocky smile that always had Castiel stuttering and blushing when they had first met all those years ago. He had been so nervous to ask him out, so relieved when Dean had accepted. It was a little bit like this conversation, but so different at the same time…

“Do you want to come here and cuddle with me?” Dean asked, patting the empty seat at his side.

Castiel wasn’t a fan of wrestling and he had worked to do. He had books to correct and college papers to grade.

But it had been so long since he could spend time with Dean like this…

“Yes.” He sat next to Dean and leaned against him as Dean passed an arm around his shoulders while he raised the TV’s volume with his other hand.

Castiel closed his eyes and breathed in Dean’s familiar scent, listening to the beating of his heart. And for at least a little while, it felt like things would be alright after all.

 

* * *

 

It was true that Castiel didn’t have many friends but the ones he had, well… they weren’t the kind to stay in touch constantly. It was more likely that they would show up in town unexpectedly and give him a call, expecting him to drop everything and go hang with them.

Well, at least that’s how it was on Balthazar’s case.

“I will be the juror in this lovely little poetry contest and I thought you’d love to come,” he said when he called that following weekend. “We haven’t seen each other since my last book tour and I would love to catch up. You can bring Dean along, of course.”

“I will ask him,” Castiel said, knowing full well that Dean was going to say no.

Dean didn’t disappoint.

“You know Fridays are madness in the workshop,” he told Castiel. “And in any case, that’s not my scene, with Balthazar and all of your other writer friends… it’s just… you know.”

“Yes,” Castiel muttered. “I know.”

Dean had never liked what he called “his writer friends”. Especially early in their relationship, Castiel had tried to get Dean integrated in his group of friends, but it had failed spectacularly. Sitting around and talking about books bored his engineering, restless mind and he didn’t like their music or the beer they drank. In not so many words, he had let Castiel know he thought all his friends were pretentious and annoying, so Castiel had stopped asking him to come to those outings.

He especially disliked Balthazar. When Castiel had met him in college through his sister Anna, Balthazar was already an established author and Castiel, of course, was a starry-eyed kid who was very impressed by his accomplishments. They had spent a lot of time talking about Balthazar’s latest book.

That had been the cause one of the first serious fights Castiel had with Dean.

“I don’t like the way he looks at you, okay? He just… it’s like he wants to steal you away!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dean. No one can ‘steal me away’,” Castiel had replied.

In any case, it didn’t matter. Dean had learned to let go of his jealousy with the years. Or perhaps he was more confident in their relationship after so many years and the wedding bands in their fingers.

But he still wouldn’t come to the poetry contest and Castiel didn’t want to go alone. He knew Balthazar and he knew he would drink and go home as soon as he caught the eye of someone who tickled his fancy, leaving Castiel alone and awkward in a bar he was unfamiliar with.

Maybe that was why he brought it up to Meg during their lunch meeting. It had become a costume by now that they had lunch together two or three times a week, in the same café near campus. She told him about the progress on her thesis and Castiel told her funny anecdotes about his students. They laughed a lot and exchanged opinions on books and Castiel usually had to run to his classes because he always forgot to check the time when he was with her.

“I don’t know, Cas. Poetry isn’t really my thing,” Meg replied with a little shrug. “Will there be booze, though?”

“Knowing Balthazar, plenty of it.”

Meg grinned at him. “Then I’ll be there.”

On Friday, he sent a text to Dean to remind him that he was going out with Balthazar and took a cab to Meg’s place without waiting for a reply. Perhaps he should have insisted on Dean going, but that might have prompted another fight about how Dean was never home and Castiel was trying to avoid all confrontations ahead of their therapy session.

Meg didn’t keep him waiting for long. She came down the stairs looking absolutely lovely in her usual jeans and leather jacket. She had added a studded belt and a charm around her neck that pressed warmly against Castiel’s skin when she greeted him with a quick hug.

“We’re taking my roommate’s car, since you don’t trust my bike.”

“They’re a hazardous vehicle and I hope that one day you will see this too,” Castiel commented in all seriousness.

She merely laughed at his comment. It was as if everything he told her came from a very grumpy, very out of touch mentor. He figured it wasn’t strange that she saw him like that. After all, what did he expect? She was seven years younger than him and working hard on building her future. And besides, he was a married man.

He had no idea how that was relevant to any of the things he was thinking.

Balthazar was waiting for him outside the bar where the poetry contest was taking place. He was wearing a grey V-neck shirt and his curly hair and beard gave him the aspect of the bohemian writer he was or he pretended to be. He also hugged Castiel tightly upon seeing him.

“You look wonderful, my dear!” he said, patting him in the cheek.

Castiel thanked him and quickly introduced him to Meg. She offered him her hand, but instead of shaking it, Balthazar took it and delicately left a kiss on top of it.

“Such a great pleasure to meet you, indeed,” he commented, with a toothy grin that Castiel knew meant he was hoping to ask Meg to go back to his hotel room with him.

Selfishly, he wished Meg wouldn’t accept. If only because then Castiel would be in the awkward position of having to catch a cab back home.

“Thank you,” Meg said, retrieving her hand quickly. “What part of England are you from?”

“I am actually from France, darling, though my mother hailed from the lovely Edinburg. Ever been?” Balthazar asked, as he guided them towards the door.

“To Scotland? No, but I’ve been to Paris. It’s a lovely city, especially in the spring.”

“That it is!” Balthazar beamed, delighted, and helped Meg out of her jacket before moving the chair for her, all why he kept on talking: “I keep telling Castiel he has to visit, but he won’t since his better half is terrified of planes.”

“You could go without him, though,” Meg suggested, as she sat in front of him. She was wearing a very simple red blouse underneath that left her shoulders uncovered. Castiel realized he was staring and chuckled nervously.

“I couldn’t leave Dean alone for so long.”

“Shame. It seems you will have to visit me on your own, Meg,” Balthazar said.

Castiel stared at them in silence, clenching his fists underneath the table. He should have expected it. Balthazar was in the use of treating people he had known for five minutes with the same familiarity as if had known them his whole life and it wasn’t strange that they fell for his confidence and his charm.

But he didn’t like the way Meg smiled back at him or how Balthazar touched her exposed shoulder before announcing he had to sit in the juror’s table and that he would be rejoining them once the contest was over. He beckoned to a waiter and told them to put everything they ordered on his tab and disappeared with Meg’s eyes following him closely.

“Meg…” Castiel started, though he wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

Meg threw her black hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes.

“A bit of a player, isn’t he?” she commented.

Castiel forced himself to relax his posture.

"Yes, he does like to... get friendly with people. But he's a very smart man. And very talented, too."

"Really? Any book of his you might recommend?"

Castiel saw Balthazar looking at them from the juror's table and turned all of his attention to Meg.

"Try Black Feathers. He hates that one."

It was always a pleasure to hear her laugh.

They shared beers and bowl of peanuts as the contest went on. Five writers took the stage to recite their works and Castiel got lost in the rhythm of their stanzas, in the music of their words. It was always beautiful to hear someone's creation, to discover their talents and the undercurrent message of their verses. There was clapping after every one of the poets finished and Mg and Castiel used those intervals to lean over and comment what they had thought about it. Their opinions clashed almost every time.

"It was so trite and corny, how could you like it?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

"It was a beautiful interpretation of the Icarus topic, how could you not like it?" he replied, shaking his head. "And besides, he's going to win."

"Yeah? How do you know?"

"He's Balthazar's type," Castiel said, with a shrug.

Despite Meg laughing at him, it turned out he was right. The guy of the Icarus poem won and when he went on stage to receive his certificate, Balthazar shook his hand longer than any of the other jurors.

So it wasn't a surprise that when he came back to the table, he was accompanied by the winner.

"Meg, Castiel, please, say hello to Gadreel."

"Nice to meet you."

"Congratulations."

Gadreel must have been in his mid-twenties. He had clear blue eyes and brown hair he wore parted to the side and had a strong jawbone. He was handsome, but a little shy, commenting he hadn't expected to win at all.

"I'm honestly a bit overwhelmed by this. I thought I was gonna stutter and make a big fool of myself up there."

"Nonsense! You were great!" Balthazar insisted. He had moved his chair a little too close to Gadreel's and he was smiling insistently at him. "Honestly, I hadn't seen a performance so touching since Castiel's own win..."

"Oh, you wrote poetry too?" Meg asked, turning to him.

Castiel's face suddenly caught fire.

"I... I dabbled," he admitted. "I was nowhere near as good..."

"Fake modesty doesn't suit you, darling. I honestly don't know why you stopped." Balthazar commented. Luckily for Castiel, he then turned his full attention back on Meg. "But I'm sure you must be a writer as well. You have an air about you, like a beautiful crowned poet of old..."

"On the contrary, I have absolutely no head for poetry," Meg said. "Usually I like people who are more... direct with their words."

Balthazar leaned back in the chair, as if Meg had just slapped him. "Well... to each their own, I suppose."

The conversation continued amicably for a couple of hours. Meg switched to non-alcoholic beer after a while (she was the designated driver after all) and Castiel did the same in solidarity, but Balthazar and Gadreel continued drinking until their speech became slurry and they lost their inhibition. Balthazar's chair moved even closer to him and at one point, he leaned his head against Gadreel's shoulder and left a single peck underneath his ear.

Castiel took that as their cue to leave.

"This has been such a lovely night. I'm so glad I got to see you, Castiel," Balthazar said, half-hugging him, half-holding unto to Castiel to avoid falling on his face. "Why don't we do this more?"

"Because you live in Europe for eight months a year," Castiel reminded him. He gently pushed him away and smiled. "It was good to see you too, Balthazar."

Balthazar patted him on the cheek again and then staggered to where Gadreel was waiting for him next to a taxi stop. Castiel saw them kissing on the rearview mirror as Meg started the car.

"Well, that was fun," she commented with a laugh. "You have interesting friends."

"I'm afraid Balthazar has to be the most interesting of them all," Castiel replied.

They drove in silence for a moment as he considered whether it would be appropriate to ask the question he had in mind. It really was none of his business and she owed him no explanation, but still…

“Why didn’t you… I mean, he was… why…?” he stuttered and then went quiet. His tongue wasn’t helping him and he was definitely wishing he hadn’t had that last beer now.

But Meg somehow managed to make sense of his words.

“Why didn’t I go with him even though he was hitting on me all night?” She chuckled.

“Yes,” Castiel said, relieved he didn’t have to finish that question. But he immediately got flustered once again. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, I mean… it’s a logical question. He was smart and sexy. Someone you could easily have a meaningless romp with, is that right?”

“I… I didn’t mean to insinuate that you were the kind of person who went for that,” Castiel said. He was only digging this whole further, so he rubbed his face and looked away. “I’m sorry. Forget I asked.”

Meg didn’t say anything for the longest of times and Castiel assumed she was offended. He was about to apologize when she spoke again.

“I’m not gonna lie to you. If you’d met me a couple of years ago, I would’ve totally ditched you at the bar and gone to spend a lovely weekend with him.”

“Oh,” Castiel muttered. “I’m… glad that’s not the case anymore?”

Meg only shot him a weary smile. They had entered Castiel’s neighborhood and had to interrupt their conversation while he gave her directions to his house. Once there, Meg stopped the car, but Castiel made no attempt at getting out. He had the feeling that conversation wasn’t over.

Indeed, after tapping her fingers against the wheel for a few seconds, Meg continued:

“I don’t want something meaningless,” she said in the end. “I’m trying to build something with my life, something I can be proud of. And I don’t want to waste my time with someone who doesn’t want to build it with me. So, yeah, Balthazar was hot, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s going back to Paris or trading me for a blue-eyed poet when his whimsy demands him to.” She stopped and turned to look at him. “Is that stupid?”

“No,” Castiel assured her. “I don’t think it is.”

She was so beautiful, looking golden and red under the streetlight. Balthazar was wrong, he thought. She didn’t look like a laureate poet. She looked like an enchantress, beautiful and tricky, especially when she tilted her head and threw her a suspicious look.

“Did you have a thing with him?” she asked. “Because you’re also his type, aren’t you?”

Castiel had to laugh.

“No. He asked me to go out with him several times and perhaps, if circumstances had been different, I would’ve taken him up on his offer,” he confessed. “But I was dating Dean and… well, I was already building something with him.”

Meg looked over his shoulder and Castiel did the same. She was looking at his house, his beautiful two story house in the suburbs that he and Dean were still paying for. The house that should have toys littered around in the yard. The house where sometimes Castiel paced around like a prisoner, not knowing what to do with himself.

“Must be nice,” Meg commented. “To have someone like that.”

“It is,” Castiel said.

He didn’t add he feared Dean wasn’t interested in building anymore. He didn’t add lately they couldn’t even agree on what to have for breakfast, let alone what to do with their future. But there was still hope all of that was in the cusp of changing.

“Well, guess I entertained you long enough,” Meg said.

She leaned over and left a quick peck on his cheek. Castiel startled by the warmth of her lips, her touch ghosting over his wrist.

But Meg didn’t notice.

“Goodnight, Cas. I’ll see you on Tuesday at our place.”

“Yes. Goodnight.”

He managed to collect himself enough to exit the car, but once out, he stood underneath the streetlight, watching her car disappear into the night. He touched his cheek, the spot where she had kissed him, and smiled. He wondered why his heart was pounding that hard and why he didn’t feel like sleeping all of the sudden.

But he immediately shook his head. He was thinking pure ridiculous thoughts and it was best if he forgot about them.

He turned around and stalked towards the silent house waiting for him.


	3. Chapter 3

The best that could be said about Dr. Ellicot’s waiting room was that it didn’t feel like a doctor’s waiting room at all. Castiel supposed therapists knew how to decorate them so they would look warm and welcoming, but after staring at the painting of a sea that hanged from the wall for so long, he was beginning to slowly grow to hate it.

No, he realized. It wasn’t the painting. The painting was very nice. It was just that he was so frustrated and so tired of being there that he couldn’t help but to detest it.

Dr. Ellicot opened the door of his office and looked around. He didn’t need to. Castiel was still the only person sitting there. His secretary had left two minutes ago to go for a coffee.

“It’s been twenty minutes, Castiel,” Dr. Ellicot pointed out.

“I know,” Castiel cringed. “I’m sorry. I’ve tried calling him, but I’m sure he’s on his way here…”

Dr. Ellicot shot him a pitiful look from behind his glasses.

“I’m sorry, Castiel, but we can’t have the session if your husband isn’t here,” he said, as if it wasn’t obvious. “And if he’s this late, I’m gonna have to assume he won’t show up at all.”

Castiel sighed deeply and stood up.

“I… you’re probably right. I’m really sorry about this,” he said, shaking the therapist’s hand. “Thank you for your time anyway, doctor.”

He turned around to head for the door when Dr. Ellicot called his name again.

“Castiel, might I make a suggestion?”

Castiel stayed in his place, waiting for the doctor to continue.

“It’s the third time Dean misses the appointment,” Dr. Ellicot said, as if Castiel needed to be reminded of that. “Perhaps you would rather make an appointment for yourself?”

Castiel clenched the doorknob tight, but he forced himself to breathe easy.

“I will think about it. Thanks again.”

Outside the doctor’s office, it was a beautiful summer day. The sun shone bright and there were birds chirping. Castiel stared at the sky for a little while, blinking, thinking it should be cloudy and raining so it could match his mood. Without hesitation, he fished his phone from inside his pocket and sent a single text. Walking as if he was in a dream, he headed in the park’s direction and found a bench to sit in.

He realized how odd he must have looked, a man in his mid-thirties sitting alone on a bench, watching the mothers pushing the strollers or guiding their shy young children towards the slides or the sandbox. On the open space behind the trees, there were even some fathers and sons tossing footballs at each other, running around and screaming like they hadn’t a care in the world.

One of the footballs flew above the playground and landed right next to Castiel’s feet. He leaned over to pick up as a little boy, no more than six or seven years old, ran towards him with his cheeks red and panting from the effort.

“Thank you, mister,” he muttered when Castiel handed the football back to him.

“You’re very welcome,” Castiel replied.

He watched them get away with an ache in his chest. He had imagined a million times what it would be like to have a little boy, a small child with freckles on the bridge of his nose like Dean. He liked the name Eliot, after T. S. Eliot, and he had always imagined that he would read him Dr. Seuss books before going to bed.

If they had started the adoption procedures right after getting married, maybe right now Eliot would be the same age at that boy screaming as his dad chased him down around the park.

Something tapped him on the shoulder. Castiel looked up to see Meg standing near his bench with a bag of donuts and a cup holder. She sat by his side and without a word, she extended one of the cinnamon lattes to him.

“He missed it again, didn’t he?” she asked.

Castiel didn’t feel the need to clarify what was obvious. He was ever so thankful that Meg had finally found an apartment to herself near their favorite café and that she was willing to show up at any time whenever he texted her. In just a few short months, she had become his best friend and he had no words to tell her how much he appreciated it.

He toyed with the cup on his hand, without even taking a drink.

“Our seventh anniversary is in three weeks,” he commented. “We had an August wedding. Our honeymoon was a road trip across the country that lasted a whole month. Every year after that, we packed his old Chevrolet Impala and we just… took off. For weeks at a time.”

“Sounds like a lot of fun,” Meg said.

“It was.” Castiel fidgeted with the cup in his hand before he took a sip. “But the trips kept getting shorter and shorter. And we won’t be going at all this year.”

“That sucks.”

Castiel sighed and turned to look at her. There was a little bit of pity on her eyes, but no judgment or derision. She took a donut out of the bag, split it in two and offered a half to Castiel. He stared at it just as he had done with the coffee for a very long time before he took a bite. The sugary taste did nothing to improve his foul mood, so he threw back inside the bag.

“I feel like I’m the only one trying,” he confessed. “And I also feel like I’m trying too hard and I have no right to feel this miserable. Dean doesn’t seem to think anything is wrong, so why do I keep pressing these issues? We have a lovely house, we have our health, we’re together. Why do I keep… wishing for more?”

“It’s only human, Cas. We keep setting new finish lines as we reach the old ones. That’s how we stay alive.”

“Yes.” Castiel nodded. That sounded reasonable. “I just… I fear that Dean and I aren’t even running on the same race anymore.”

Meg drank her coffee in silence for a few seconds.

“If you were one of my girlfriends who kept complaining to me that her boyfriend is a douche, I would tell you to dump him and find someone who appreciates you.”

“It’s not that simple. Dean is not just a boyfriend.”

“I know he’s not. But I’m out of things to tell you. And I really do hate seeing you like this.”

Castiel sighed deeply and tried to force out a smile on her.

“You don’t have to tell me anything. Just… the fact that you’re here, listening to me, is invaluable. Thank you.”

Meg smirked and stretched her hand to squeeze his. Little touches like those between them had become common place. At first Castiel was worried if they meant something else, if they were appropriate or not, but he soon stopped caring altogether. Meg and him just were enjoying each other’s company and there was nothing wrong with that. She had proven to be a true friend and a real support during those hardships, and they were both completely clear on what were the limits and terms of their relationship.

Castiel wondered sometimes, though. When she threw her hair back or when she laughed. He wondered if they had met at some other time, some other place…

“Do I have something on my nose?” Meg asked, arching her eyebrow.

Castiel chuckled.

“I was just thinking that the conclusion to your thesis is advancing very slowly.”

“Aw, shit.” Meg let go of his hand and rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. It’ll be ready when it’s ready. How about we talk about your book?”

“My editor has approved the latest changes and it’s ready for printing. Thank you for your corrections and suggestions. They were incredibly useful.”

“Well, who better to talk about bitter old spinsters to than someone who spends all of her time reading about them?” Meg said, raising her cup of latte.

“I’ll drink to that,” Castiel said. They clanked their cups together as if they were glasses of champagne and laughed when a pigeon approached them and tried to snatch a piece of donut from underneath the bench.

The stormy clouds in Castiel’s mind weren’t gone completely, but they certainly felt lighter.

 

* * *

 

The first time Dean had missed the appointment with Dr. Ellicot, he’d said he forgot about it. The second time he had assured Castiel he would be on his way there only to ultimately call him again to tell him that something that required his urgent and immediate attention had turned up at the workshop. Both times had ended up in huge fights in which Dean had fled the house. The last time he had been gone for two days. After getting a little worried on the morning of the second day, Castiel had texted Sam, Dean’s brother, only to be reassured that Dean was with him and he was okay and would be back that night. Castiel had been so relieved that he had completely dropped the issue when Dean returned.

This time, Castiel had made sure to call him ahead to remind him and again before he went into the doctor’s office. He hadn’t picked up the phone the second time and that was how he ended up having to cancel yet again.

And Castiel had decided not to fight about it. He just… wasn’t planning on bringing it up at all. He almost wanted to see if Dean would remember by himself and have an excuse ready or if he just would avoid the issue as he did with so many other things, like the possibility of them having children. But Castiel was so tired of it all he decided to act as if nothing was wrong when Dean returned home that night.

It was late, though not as late as usual. Castiel was in the kitchen washing the dishes when he heard the door clicked open and the familiar sound of Dean’s footsteps. He made no move to go to him and continued rinsing and putting the dishes away until his husband stalked into the kitchen.

“Hey, Cas,” he called out softly.

Castiel looked over his shoulder. Dean was standing near the kitchen isle, his hands on his pockets and looking slightly dejected. He licked his lips as if he was going to say something else, but Castiel had no interest in listening to him.

“Hello, Dean. There’s food in the fridge if you haven’t eaten,” he informed him. “I’m going upstairs. I need to do some reading.”

He turned to leave but Dean moved faster: he grabbed him by the shoulder and made him turn around.

“What, so you’re just not going to say anything?” he asked.

Castiel sighed deeply. He should’ve known it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“What do you want me to say, Dean?”

“I don’t know!” Dean shouted. “Something!”

Castiel stared at him for the longest time, trying to count to ten in his head. He made it to four before all his good intentions of not fighting over this flew out of the window.

“You have no right to be mad at me!” he replied, in a volume perhaps a little louder than was necessary. “You have failed to be there every single time, even though you promised you would give it a chance!”

Dean raised his arms and stepped backwards.

“Look, I know it doesn’t look good…”

“Stop!” Castiel cut him off. “I don’t want to hear about how this rich asshole walked into the shop last minute demanding impossible things. I don’t want to hear how you’re so busy you don’t have time for your husband!”

“That isn’t true…!”

“Isn’t it?” Castiel let out a long, bitter laugh. “Because that’s what it seems to me, Dean. Your job is more important to you than our relationship, and I’m just… I’m tired. I’m so tired of trying when you won’t even lift a finger to try to meet me halfway! So congratulations. You got what you wanted: you don’t have to go to the shrink that’s gonna rob us blind.”

On Dean’s behalf, he did have the decency to look away and seem ashamed. But Castiel was still so furious he couldn’t even be satisfied with that. He turned his back on him and stormed off the kitchen, climbing the stairs and slamming the door to his studio behind him.

Once there, he realized his anger hadn’t gone away just by shouting. His heart was still pounding fast and he was still breathing fast. He paced around to try to get rid of the leftover energy and finally sat behind his desk. He sank his face in his hand and forced himself to breathe in and breathe out. He almost expected to hear the purring of Dean’s Impala as he drove away to spend the night at Sam’s place once again.

Instead, what he heard were two soft knocks on the door.

“Cas,” Dean called him out on the other side. “Can I come in? Can we talk?”

It was so easy, Castiel thought as he stood up from his chair and walked towards the door. So easy for him to forgive Dean. It had always been. When Dean bothered to show a minimum of contrition for his actions, Castiel was always ready to let whatever it was he had done go.

His hand rested on the doorknob as he hesitated. Why did he have to be the one who was always forgiving? Why did he have to let go every single time?

But even as he wondered that, he already knew he was going to open the door. Because that was the nature of love, wasn’t it? They forgave each other’s flaws. They worked together to be better than before.

Dean shot him a contrite look when he opened the door.

“I’m sorry, okay? You’re right. I have no excuse. Not a good one, in any case. I’m sorry I’m such a shitty husband.”

“Dean…” Castiel sighed.

“You deserve better. I should try to be better.”

Castiel took a step forwards and hid his face in Dean’s shoulder. He didn’t want to be angry with him and it was easy. It was just so much easier to let go and pretend that this time would be different.

Perhaps it would be. Was it foolish of him to think that way?

Dean held him close and rocked him back and forwards, as if Castiel was a child that needed to be calmed down.

“I roped Charlie into holding the fort for me for a couple of days,” he told him after a few seconds. “You know, so we can go somewhere for our anniversary. It’ll have to be just a weekend, but… it’s better than nothing, right?”

Castiel felt that all of his anger had become a big lump in his throat and it burned in his eyes in the form of tears. He pulled away from Dean and stared at his husband’s face for a long time.

“Yes,” he concluded. “It’s better than nothing.”

Dean’s smile was feeble and cautious. He softly put a hand under Castiel’s chin and pulled him in for a kiss.

“Maybe we can try the whole therapy thing again after we come back, if you really want us too,” he added, as he put his arms around Castiel. “I’ll be there this time. I promise.”

Castiel pressed himself so hard against Dean’s body if felt like they were never going to let go of each other.

He really wanted to believe Dean’s words.

 

* * *

 

Meg submitted her dissertation in the early days of September, just as the classes were starting again on campus. From having read it and helped her correct it, Castiel knew it was brilliant and she was very likely to get approved with no corrections at all, but she still freaked out majorly on that day’s lunch.

“Do you have any idea how long I have to wait until they give me a response? Because I read there’s a waiting period of six weeks, but someone told me they were waiting for like three months and that’s…”

“I’m sure you’ll hear from them soon enough,” Castiel told her, stretching his hand over the table to squeeze hers. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Meg snapped. “Why? Do I look worried to you?”

Castiel tilted his head, smiling despite himself. Meg was usually so brash and outspoken it was hard to believe she was fretting and losing her confidence over this.

“You look adorably troubled,” he told her.

Meg huffed and pulled her hand away from him. He thought he saw her blush, but she immediately collected herself and shot him a look.

“Let’s change the subject. How did the road trip go?”

Castiel smiled and pulled out his cellphone so Meg could see the pictures.

“Can you believe than in all those years it never occurred to us to go to Mount Rushmore? We always went to the silly tourist traps and small towns, but we never actually stopped in the monuments and historical sites. I told Dean next year we should go to the Grand Canyon.”

“Is that an eagle on top of your car?” Meg asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“We stopped for gas, it landed on our roof and it wouldn’t go away no matter what we did.”

Meg laughed out loud and Castiel figured it was pretty funny. Dean had been irritated that he’d stopped to take a picture instead of helping him shoo the bird, but Castiel was sure that no one would believe him unless he presented them with photographic evidence.

She returned the phone to him and her playful face became a little more serious.

“And how are things?”

She didn’t even need to clarify why she was asking.

“Things are… looking up,” he told her.

Meg’s eyes darted down to his hands. He realized he was fidgeting with his wedding band again and he forced himself to stop.

“Really, they’re good,” Castiel insisted. “We’re not fighting as much. Dean is actually making an effort to show up for dinner. We’re working it out.”

Meg hummed as if she doubted it and took a sip of her latte.

“And what about therapy?”

“I think… it might not be necessary after all. Dean might have been right. We can figure this out by ourselves.”

Meg shot him a skeptical look and Castiel realized what it must look like. He had been coming to her for months, complaining about how much he was fighting with Dean and how bad everything was. And now to assure her that everything was fine…

It wasn’t that he believed it himself. It was that he wanted to believe it.

“Meg…”

“You would tell me, right?” she cut him off. “If everything wasn’t as… peachy. You would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

The intensity of that request caught him off guard. Meg usually was happy to lend an ear and encourage him to try and find a solution, which to Castiel had been so important, especially on the bleaker days of that summer. But she had never seem worried about Castiel’s well-being, not in this way at least.

“Of course,” Castiel assured her. “Your friendship means a lot to me and I know I can trust you. I hope that you can trust me as well if you ever find yourself going through any difficulties.”

“Thank you,” she sighed. “But I’m just worried about you. Because whenever my friends went back to their shitty boyfriends, they had this wonderful stage when everything was great and dandy. And then it turned out all the worse.”

Her tone was strangely sadder than usual as she told him that. Castiel watched her closely.

“Did you… ever have a relationship like that?”

“I mean… who hasn’t?” Meg chuckled, but it sounded forced and she avoided his gaze. “But seriously, Cas. I just want to know that you’re okay.”

“I am,” Castiel assured her. “We are. And we’ll keep getting better.”

Meg sighed and leaned back on her chair.

“Okay. That’s good enough for me.” She went to pick up her sandwich with a little giggle.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s just, you’ve been coming to me to talk shit about your husband all these months…”

“I wasn’t… it wasn’t like…”

“… and I have yet to actually meet the guy,” she said, ignoring Castiel’s attempt at a justification and his blushing.

Castiel smiled despite everything. That was a little funny.

“Well, you can meet him next month, for my birthday. It’ll be small. Just a dinner, with some friends and family… would you like to come?”

There was something in Meg’s expression that he couldn’t define. A sort of sorrow in her expression that made her eyes look darker and put a tension in the edge of her smile. But it went away fast as Meg spoke again:

“Of course.”

 

* * *

 

He hadn’t lied to Meg. Perhaps he had exaggerated a little about the frequency of Dean being home for dinner, but it wasn’t exactly a lie. He still didn’t come home early every night, but Castiel noticed he was making an effort to be there at least once a week. All things considered, he couldn’t have asked for more.

Well, he wanted to. He wanted to ask Dean to at least look at him while they talk or to show a little bit of interest in the things he told him. But it wasn’t like he expected any different. Dean had never been interested in academic achievements, so talking about the college, his courses and his students would of course bore him.

But it would be nice if he at least pretended like he was listening to him.

“… the book is selling well, my editor tells me,” Castiel told him that night as they ate. “I’ve got some really positive reviews from some colleagues.”

“That’s great, Cas,” Dean muttered, half-heartedly. His eyes were glued to his cellphone’s screen. Castiel was sitting across from him on the table and tried to crane his neck to see what he was doing, but Dean finally put it down and turned his attention back to the food.

At no point during that interaction did he looked up at Castiel.

“So… I was thinking maybe when the extra cash from that starts rolling in I could buy my own car,” he said.

“Why the hell you need a car for? You can take the Impala when you need it,” Dean pointed out.

Castiel thought about telling him that wasn’t precisely true. Dean always drove the Impala to work and Castiel moved mostly through public transportation. Meg had offered in several occasions to give him a ride in her bike, but no matter how much she assured him it was safe, he still didn’t trust its stability. A car would save him time and give him more freedom to move back and forwards whenever he wanted to.

It would mean less of his lunches with Meg would end with him bolting out upon realizing he wouldn’t have enough time to catch a bus or to run back to the campus.

But he said none of that.

“Perhaps you’re right. Maybe I can put it forwards for the house’s payment,” he suggested instead.

“I got that covered,” Dean said, curtly.

“I know you do,” Castiel sighed, trying to keep his patience. “But I live here too and…”

“I don’t mind paying for it, Cas.”

“Yes, I know. But I was thinking that perhaps if I do that, it will lighten your load somehow and you wouldn’t have to work so hard all the time.”

Dean rolled his eyes to the ceiling, but it seemed he too was doing his best to avoid any fights lately.

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he concluded, tersely.

Castiel decided that was a diplomatic enough answer and swiftly changed the topic.

“I invited Meg to come to my birthday party. I think it’s about time you two meet.”

“What Meg?” Dean asked, raising his eyes towards Castiel.

“Meg Masters,” Castiel said, a little baffled that Dean wouldn’t recognize the name. “My friend, Meg.”

“You don’t have a friend named Meg.”

“Yes, I do,” Castiel insisted. “I told you about her. I met her back in the spring…”

“Wait, the… the… the dissertation girl?” Dean said, snapping his fingers several time as if to jog his memory. “I thought you were just helping her with her work.”

“I was. And we became friends in the process,” Castiel clarified. “She’s not a girl, by the way. She’s twenty-eight and she’s applying for a job at the school once her PhD is finalized.”

“Huh,” Dean muttered.

But if he thought something of that, he didn’t say it. He simply kept cutting his meat and chewing in silence. Castiel was done trying to bring up a conversation topic that wouldn’t die down after a few seconds or cause some sort of friction, so he did the same thing.

It didn’t last long.

“So you’ve been spending a lot of time with this… Meg person?” Dean asked.

“I mean… some?” Castiel said, not sure where Dean was going with that question. “We have lunch a couple of times a week whenever she’s near the campus. We went to that poetry contest Balthazar invited me to…”

“You never mentioned that.”

Castiel was willing to bet everything he owned that he had and Dean either hadn’t heard him or wasn’t interested enough in remembering it.

“Well, we did. She’s a very smart woman and we have a lot of interests in common. I’m excited for you to meet her.”

“Yeah, I bet you do.”

Dean’s tone was so cold that it startled Castiel.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, of course not,” Dean groaned. Castiel was willing to drop, but then just had to go ahead and add: “It’s just that you’ve been spending a lot of time with this stranger…”

“She’s _a friend_ , Dean,” Castiel snapped. “Am I not allowed to have those?”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Pray tell, what did you mean then?”

Dean opened his mouth but then he closed it again, his jaw clenching in the way it always did when he was trying not to scream.

“Nothing,” he said after a moment. “Forget it.”

He picked up his plate and his glass and marched towards the kitchen. Castiel sank his face in his hand, feeling a headache starting to grow in his temples.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on finishing this fic last weekend when I began posting it, but it grew way past the word count that I had calculated for it and Real Life also got in the way.
> 
> In any case, with luck, the last chapter should be up sometime this weekend. Look forward to that!

Castiel woke up on his birthday to an empty bed and stared at the ceiling for a very long time.

He was turning thirty-five that year. He was still young, he supposed, by modern standards. He was in a very good place in his life: he had a house and he was healthy. He had a good job teaching young, ambitions minds that still left him enough time to publish his books and investigations into the authors he loved. He had a husband and he loved Dean, no matter how much they fought and how many times they weren’t on the same page about something. He had friends and family and a thousand things to be thankful for.

And yet…

Why was there an emptiness on the pit of his stomach? Why did he feel like pulling the sheets over his head and not even thinking about getting up that day? Why were there tears welling up in his eyes that he had to wipe away when he heard the door opening?

“Hey, babe. Happy birthday!” Dean said, with that handsome smile that had made Castiel’s heart skip a beat on the very night they first met. He was carrying a tray in his hands and he gentle placed it on Castiel’s lap.

There was a mug of black, steaming hot coffee and a plate with scrambled eggs, toasts and butter. On the side, there was box wrapped in blue paper and tied up with a big white bow on top of it.

“Dean…” Castiel stopped for a second and took a deep breath. He didn’t want his voice to come out broken: “Thank you.”

“Open it,” Dean said, pushing the box closer to Castiel. “I wanna know if you like it.”

Castiel wondered what had Dean got him. Maybe he had gone through his Amazon wish list and got him one of the books he had marked for later…?

When he untied the bow and opened the box though, it turned out to be just a silk tie. It was blue and white with very thin stripes. Castiel stared at it in silence.

“Well?”

He shouldn’t be ungrateful, Castiel thought as he forced out a smile.

“Thank you, Dean. It’s most thoughtful.”

“Yeah, Professor Milton needed to update his wardrobe a little bit,” Dean laughed and softly caressed Castiel’s cheek with his thumb. He left a quick peck on the edge of his lips before standing up. “Anyway, I’m off. I’ll pick up Sam and Sarah after work and I’ll bring them here for dinner, okay?”

“Alright. I’ll see you tonight.”

Dean left without giving him another kiss. Castiel ate in silence, letting the coffee burned him on the way down to his stomach, trying to see if that would make the unsettling sensation that he was missing something go away.

By night, the clouds were still covering the sky, so it didn’t make a whole lot of difference when the sun went down. Castiel stopped by the catering service to pick up the food and wine that he had reserved for his guests. In previous years, he and Dean had sometimes cooked for them, but of course, he was too busy now. Castiel walked towards, pulling the lapels of his trench coat up to protect his ears from the cold. He wondered when he was going to stop thinking about the good old days and be happy with what he had in the present.

He had barely been home for ten minutes when a car parked outside the house and a minute later, the doorbell rang.

Anna, his younger sister, was the first one to catch in an embrace as soon as he opened.

“Happy birthday!”

“Thank you,” Castiel said, flustered. Someone caught him by the arm and turned him around for another hug.

“Look at you, Cassie.” Gabriel, his other brother, patted him in the cheek. “You’re grown ass man.”

“I’m thirty-five, Gabe. I’ve been grown for a while.”

“Oh, ignore him.” Kali, Gabriel’s wife, kissed him in both cheeks and put the bottle of champagne he was carrying in his hands. “Happy birthday.”

“Is there anything you need our help with?” Anna asked. She had taken her coat and she was already marching into the kitchen to take charge of whatever it was that needed to get done, like she always did.

Castiel was thankful of having them all there. They stayed in touch over Facebook and texting, but the occasion in which they all visited him was rare, especially since they had moved out into this new house. And he truly missed them all, even Anna with his military like ways and Gabriel with his jokes. He especially missed…

The doorbell rang again when they were putting on the table and Castiel’s heart almost jumped out of his chest when he opened the door.

“ _Unke_ Cas!” exclaimed the little boy pointing a plastic sword at him. Castiel immediately covered his chest with his hand and pretended to die. The boy laughed out loud as he extended his hands towards him, begging to be picked up from the floor.

“Hello, Jack,” Castiel greeted him as he took him up in his arms. He noticed the eye patch his nephew was wearing and smiled. “Are you a pirate this week?”

“And for the past few weeks,” Kelly confirmed. She waddled inside, barely keeping balance with the weight of Jack’s bag and the baby chair. Castiel immediately took the bag and called for the others to come help. Once Kali and Anna had relieved her of her weight, she came over to kiss Castiel in the cheek: “Happy birthday!”

“ _’Appy bithday_!” Jack repeated, putting his hand on Castiel’s face.

“Thank you, thank you. Please, come on in. I’ll get you something to drink.”

“Rum!” Jack demanded.

“Very well, rum for the daring pirate,” Castiel agreed with a laugh.

It was always such a pleasure to have Jack home. His three-year-old nephew was hyperactive and intelligent and since he had learned his first few words, he would not stop talking about whatever it was that he was obsessed with on that particular day. Today it was pirates, but just a little while ago, it had been cowboys and he had gone everywhere with a comically oversized hat. Kelly always let him express himself and to the other kindergarten mom’s horror, she saw nothing wrong with her son playing dress up every day.

Castiel sat Jack on the kitchen isle and poured cherry soda in his sippy cup.

“Drink up, mate,” he said, imitating a pirate’s speech. “For soon we sail into dangerous waters, arghhh!”

Anna, who was serving the appetizers in a platter, chuckled at them both.

“You’re so cute!”

“He’s not cute, he’s fierce,” Castiel corrected her. “He’s a pirate!”

“Arghhh!” Jack shouted, brandishing his plastic sword. Anna exploded in a fit of giggles.

“You’re going to be such a good dad one day, Cas.”

Castiel froze for a few seconds, his heart sinking in his chest at those words. But he immediately shrugged it off and laughed once again.

“Yes… I hope so,” he muttered.

Nothing slipped by Anna, though.

“Hey.” She put a hand on his forearm and make him look at her. “Are you okay?”

Dean’s arrival with Sam and Sarah saved Castiel from having to answer to that question in full honesty. Sam also greeted him with a hug and Sarah awkwardly handed their present to him.

“We checked your Amazon wish list. We hope that’s okay.”

“Oh, that’s… that’s very nice of you,” Castiel said, side-eyeing Dean. “Thank you.”

“Well, are we all here?” Dean asked. “’Cause I’m starving and I sure could use a drink…”

“Meg’s not here yet.”

“I’m sure she’ll be here at any moment,” Dean said. Castiel thought he saw his lips twitching, as if he was having trouble keeping his smile on. “We could just…”

The roaring of the engine outside distracted him. Castiel recognized it immediately, though, and ran towards the door. Just as he had imagined, Meg had parked her bike right behind Gabriel and Kali’s car and was taking off her helmet, letting her messy black curls fall on her shoulders as she did.

“Am I late?” she asked, as she strode towards his house with the same confident step as always.

“You’re right on time,” Castiel said.

Without thinking, he pulled her in for a hug and breathed in the scent of her leather jacket and her citric shampoo.

He thought nothing of it. Everybody else had given him a hug and Meg had been his best friend for months now, why wouldn’t she hug him?

But when he turned around as he accompanied her inside and saw Dean’s face, the way he had clenched his jaw, the way his eyes were squinted… he just knew this would end up with a very tense conversation later.

“And who might you be?”

Jack was holding on to Castiel’s jacket so gently that he hadn’t even felt it. Meg immediately knelt to be on his same level and smiled at him.

“This is my nephew, Jack.”

“Calico Jack? The most fearsome pirate in all of the Caribbean?” she asked. “Ay, captain. Where are we sailing to, today?”

Jack hid his face behind Castiel’s leg, but when he looked down, he noticed the boy was smiling.

"Why a pirate, though?" Dean asked, walking up towards them. "What happened to the cowboy hat?"

Jack looked at Dean, still holding tight to Castiel's shirt with one hand and his plastic sword on the other.

"Cowboys are cooler than pirates," Dean said, leaning down towards Jack. "Ain't that right, kid?"

Jack smacked Dean on the shoulder with his sword.

"Son of a...!" Dean shouted, jumping back.

"Dean!" Castiel interrupted him, glowering at him before he cursed in front of the impressionable three year old. He picked Jack up, shaking his head as he closed the door behind Meg. "That wasn't nice, Jack. Apologize to your Uncle Dean."

Jack blew raspberry at Dean and hid his face in Castiel's neck instead. Meg snickered behind them.

"What's so funny?" Dean asked, rubbing the spot where Jack had hit him.

"Nothing," Meg said, though she was still barely containing her laughter. She recovered fast and offered her hand to Dean. "So you're the illustrious Dean Winchester. Cas told me lots about you."

"Yeah? He barely ever mentioned you," Dean shot back. "Just a joke," he added quickly when Meg crooked an eyebrow.

Castiel considered for a second letting Dean know just how rude that comment was but then decided he didn't have the time or patience to do so. Instead, he ran towards the kitchen and put Jack back in Kelly's arms.

"Please tell me the table's ready," Castiel begged.

"Yes, Anna said we're all settled," Kelly said and raised her voice a little bit. "So if you guys want to join us..."

Meg and Dean, who were still standing on the lobby, turned their gazes at them at the same time. Castiel didn't want to know what they were talking about.

Luckily, that was the last of the strange animosity that Dean displayed towards Meg. As soon as the presentations were made and every one was seated, he became the charming, attentive, social host that he could be when he wanted to. He made jokes and imitated his terrible clients, complete with voices and gestures, for everyone's amusement, smiled a lot and made sure Castiel's glass was never empty.

Castiel watched him closely while he ate. The entire day he had been behaving so different from his usual self that Castiel felt like he didn't know this man at all.

No, he realized after a moment. He did know him. This had been "usual Dean" up until very recently. The guy who was always grumpy and tired and on edge was the stranger that had slowly replaced Castiel's husband on their everyday life.

"... isn't that right, Castiel?"

Castiel snapped out of his thoughts and realized that Kali had just asked him a question.

"Ah, yes, of course," he mumbled clumsily.

"Good for you, bro," Gabriel said. His tone was one of pure pride. "You're flourishing, you got the picket white fence..."

"You married a handsome devil," Dean added, with a grin.

"I'm happy for you," Gabriel added, stretching his hand over the table to give Castiel a soft nudge with his knuckles. "Looks like you've got it all."

"Yes," Castiel said. He didn't know why it was so hard for him to force a smile on his lips. "That's something to be thankful for."

He hoped his words didn't sound as hollow to everyone else as they did to his own ears. He quickly looked away, his eyes almost automatically drawn to Jack. He was sitting on Kelly's lap because they didn't have a kiddie chair and he was apparently very concentrated on fighting Meg with his plastic sword.

"On guard, Calico Jack!" she defied him as she stopped Jack's "attacks" with her spoon. "Show why they call you the terror of the Seven Seas!"

Kelly laughed wholeheartedly.

"You're very good with him," she congratulated Meg. "He usually doesn't warm up to strangers this fast."

"That makes two of us," Meg commented as she put her spoon down. "I gotta say, though, Cas didn't mention he had another sister."

The conversation around the table cease slightly as everybody turned towards her. Castiel kicked himself mentally. He should have warned Meg this was a delicate topic.

Kelly, however, didn't seem bother by the comment at all.

“Oh, I’m not,” she said. “I was in a relationship with his older brother, Luc, until I got pregnant. And then Luc decided… not to be part of our family.”

“Oh,” Meg muttered. Her cheeks became slightly pinker at having brought up such a delicate topic, but she managed to speak again with the same confidence as before: “His loss, then.”

“Does anybody want dessert?” Castiel asked. “We’ve got ice cream!”

“Me! Me, me, me…!” Jack shouted immediately raising his hands, which cause everyone around the table to burst out laughing.

Castiel ruffled his nephew’s hair on the way to the kitchen. All in all, his birthday dinner was turning out fantastically, despite the few hiccups.

So there really was no reason at all for the burning in his chest or for wanting to escape all the comments about how he was so blessed and everybody was so happy for him. He stood in front of the sink taking in long gulps of breath, trying to compose himself.

“You need help?”

Castiel startled and squared his shoulders as he turned towards the kitchen doorway.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” he muttered. “It’s okay, Sam. I can handle this.”

“It’s your birthday, man,” his brother-in-law pointed out. “Let me help you, come on. Where do you keep the spoons?”

Castiel remembered he was supposed to be getting the ice cream and sprang into action. He served the ice cream in the bowls Sam passed to him and tried to bring up a light conversation topic.

“Did you and Sarah enjoy Cancun? I heard it’s lovely. Maybe Dean and I will go the beach one of these days, if I manage to convince him to drive that far…”

“Hey, Cas, can I ask you something?” Sam interrupted him. His tone was soft and gentle, as if he was talking to a little kid and trying not to scare him. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, Sam, of course it is,” Castiel said automatically. “I don’t know why everybody keeps asking me that.”

Was he not doing a good enough job? Was he making his guests uncomfortable…?

“I’m fine. Really, I am. Everything’s fine.”

“So… is Dean gonna show up in my house in the middle of the night again?”

Castiel froze, with a ball of chocolate ice cream still in the spoon. He slowly raised his gaze at Sam. He didn’t look angry or like he resented Castiel in any way. His hazel eyes were fixed on him, waiting for an answer.

“I don’t… I mean… I’m sorry about that, Sam,” Castiel stammered, trying to go back to serving the ice cream. “We’ve… had some bad moments this summer. But they’re behind us now.”

Sam put a hand on Castiel’s arm.

“Listen, Dean is my brother, but you’re my friend. If you ever need anything, you know you can come to me, right?”

“Thank you, Sam,” Castiel said. “But again… things are… looking up.”

Castiel didn’t know if Sam believed him or not, but he nodded and helped him put the ice cream in a platter in silence. It was as if he had realized that insisting would only end up in further denial that anything was wrong.

And it wasn’t that Castiel didn’t appreciate the intention behind his words. But he trusted that he could solve what was eating at him without have to worry his friends and family.

“Who’s ready for ice cream?” he asked in his most cheerful tone as he walked back into the dining room.

Jack immediately waved his sword and bounced on his mother’s lap with enthusiasm.

“What do we say, Jack?” Kelly asked when Castiel put the ice cream in front of them.

“Thanks, _Unke_ Cas!” Jack said, stretching his little hands towards Cas. “Love you!”

The lump in his throat made it difficult to speak as he leaned down to accept the hug, but Cas managed.

“Love you too, Calico Jack.”

The evening ended as peacefully as it had begun. They finished the ice cream and someone proposed they moved to the living room to play charades, but soon after Jack started yawning and rubbing his eyes. Anna and Gabriel immediately offered to drive him and Kelly home, so they didn’t have to catch a cab once again. Castiel walked them to the door and said goodbye to them all only to turn around and see Meg on the lobby putting on her jacket.

“You’re leaving too?” he asked. He didn’t know where that feeling of disappointment came from or why it latched so tightly around his stomach.

“Yeah, gotta go before the traffic gets too bad,” she replied simply. She looked for something inside her jacket and took out a rectangle wrapped in purple paper. “Your present, by the way. Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.”

Meg zipped up her jacket and picked up her helmet, all watching him closely as he unwrapped her gift. Perhaps he should have waited until she left, but his anxiety and curiosity were greater. What could she have possibly got him? Had she stalked his Amazon wish list as well?

He didn’t know what he was expecting. It definitely wasn’t that.

The book was small and old, he could tell but the yellowing of the pages, but it was in good state. When he turned it around, however, his heart started pounding fast. It was _The Waste Land_ , which he already owned but Meg surely knew this. He gently opened it with trembling fingers.

Not only was it marked “First edition”, there was also a scribbled on the first page he recognized immediately.

It had been signed by Eliot himself.

“Meg!” he exclaimed, holding the book away from him as if it was going to burn him. “How… how did you…?”

“I have some connections.” Meg shrugged, as if it was no big deal, but Castiel could see her eyes shifting from the book to him, nervously. “I had it checked, by the way. It’s authentic.”

Castiel resisted the impulse of clutching the book to his chest.

“This is… Meg, I can’t accept this.”

“Of course you can. I went through a world of trouble to get it for you; you’re not just going to reject it like that!”

“But… it must be so…”

“Expensive?” Meg suggested and laughed out loud. “Don’t worry about that. Trust fund kid, remember? This was petty change for me.”

He was so stunned it took him several seconds to realize he was standing in the middle of the lobby, staring at the book as if he expected to vanish if he took his eyes off of it.

“I… I don’t know what to say,” he mumbled.

“Don’t sweat it,” she insisted. She put a hand on his cheek and smiled at him. “I mean, cranky English scholars need to have their libraries filled with rare and valuable books, am I right?”

He laughed at the joke, and opened his arms for her, because he didn’t think a thank you was enough for this. Meg hugged him long and tight, and Castiel thought he heard her sighing deeply. When they broke away, she had the same smile as before.

“Well… I guess I’ll see you during the week,” she said. “We should have news about my dissertation soon.”

“Hopefully.” He chuckled and opened the door for her. “Thank you again, Meg. It was… it was a beautiful gesture.”

Meg looked at him and opened her mouth, but whatever she was about to say, she must have changed her mind, because she shook her head and walked away towards her bike. Castiel stayed where he was until she mounted it and kicked it to life, until the roaring of the engine disappeared into the night taking her away with it.

He was too shaken to go back into the living room and hear Sam, Sarah and Dean’s conversation. He told them he needed to put away Meg’s book and fled into his studio. He sat behind his desk, feeling the texture of the pages, smelling the musk of dust and time he always related with old editions.

No one had ever done anything like this for him before. People knew he loved books, and sometimes they went the extra mile and got him the nice hardcover editions. But this… this was different. Not only because no matter what Meg said, it must have been very expensive. It wasn’t the price of it that had unbalanced Castiel.

It was the meaning behind it. This book had been held by his favorite poet. He had drawn his signature in the first page. It was physical, tangible proof that he had walked the earth, that he had left more than his beautiful words behind.

And Meg had given that to him.

He felt so overwhelmed by the thought that had gone into the gift that he held his head between his palms and resisted the urge to cry.

He definitely wasn’t in his most stable state of mind that day.

Two knocks on the door pulled him back into reality.

“Hey, Cas? We’re leaving, Our Uber is here.”

Castiel opened the door to say goodbye to Sam and Sarah. They both had their jackets on already and smiled at him as if it hadn’t been completely rude on his part to hide away up there.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Take care, Cas,” Sarah said, hugging him briefly.

“And remember…” Sam said.

“Yes. Thank you, Sam.”

He still waited a few seconds after they left to go downstairs. Dean was in the kitchen, washing the dishes while humming a song to himself.

“Do you need help with that?” Castiel offered.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s your birthday,” his husband replied, looking at him over his shoulder with a smile. “Why don’t you go upstairs and just… relax? And I’ll join you in a little bit so I can give you your other present.”

“Oh?” Castiel asked, giggling at the insinuation.

God, it had been so long. He wanted to lose himself in Dean’s touch, in his kiss, the way he had done so many times before. He wanted to fall asleep with his face buried in his husband’s chest and wake up next to him for once instead to an empty bed while Dean was already getting dressed to go to work.

But there was something he needed to say before that. He walked around the isle and leaned against it, watching Dean’s back as he rinsed and put the dishes away.

“Dean… I want a baby.”

Dean dropped the plate he had in his hands. It didn’t break, but it clattered as it fell on the sink, causing a cacophony of glass against porcelain that punctuated Castiel’s statement. Dean slowly turned to look at him.

“You want a what?”

“Or maybe we can adopt an older child, if you think we can’t accommodate a baby or find a surrogate mother,” Castiel offered. “I don’t really care how it happens. I just want to be a father. And I think we’re ready.”

Dean’s shocked slowly faded away as he showed a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“That’s… I’m glad you feel that way, Cas, but… uh, look. We should think about this. We’re not in a hurry. We’ve got time…”

“I have thought about it,” Castiel interrupted him. “At length. It’s what I want. We both said we wanted this, remember? We were going to wait until your business was financially secured and well, now it is. So I think it’s time we start looking into it…”

He had more things to say, but they died in his throat. Dean was looking around as if he was trying to locate an exit, moving away as if he wanted to escape the kitchen as soon as it was possible.

“Dean? What’s the matter?”

Dean grabbed a cloth, maybe to dry his hands, but what he did instead was twisting it in his hands over and over.

“Why did you have to bring it up now?” he asked. “We were having a good couple of weeks, we had a great night tonight…”

“Why shouldn’t I bring it up?” Castiel retorted. Slowly but surely a feeling of impending doom was growing in his mind, but he pressed on despite it: “Dean, this is what we wanted. Before we got married, we said…”

“I know what we said, Cas, okay?” Dean interrupted him, raising his voice just slightly. “But that was many years ago and a lot has changed.”

“What do you mean?” Castiel asked, standing up straight and looking directly at his husband.

Dean threw the cloth over his shoulder and paced around the kitchen, like a wild animal in a cage. Finally, he stopped and deigned to look at Castiel.

“Maybe I changed my mind, okay? About the whole having kids thing.”

If he had punched Castiel in the stomach, the shock wouldn’t have been greater. Castiel stepped backwards, staring at Dean with his mouth and eyes open wide. Dean raised his hands as if with that he could defend himself from any accusations that might come.

“We have it good, okay? We built a good life together. Why does that have to change? And besides, have you met me? Do you really think I’m father material?”

“If I didn’t think so I wouldn’t have married you in the first place!” Castiel pointed out. “Dean. Please.”

He didn’t know what he was asking for. For Dean to change his mind again? For him to say that it wasn’t true? For him to say… something? Anything at all?

Dean rubbed his face with his hands. To be fair, he did looked tired and distraught over this.

Just not enough to take back what he’d said.

“I’m sorry, Cas. I’m so sorry.” He took a step towards Castiel and opened his arms as if he expected Castiel to go in for a hug. “But… is it really that important to you?”

Castiel stumbled backwards. He couldn’t believe what Dean had just said. It was as if he was as much as a stranger as this Dean, this Dean who was always so angry and condescending, this Dean who always said the wrong thing, was to him.

“What was the point, then?” he asked, in a whisper. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t think he’d have the energy to do so.

“Cas…”

“What was the point?” Castiel repeated, glaring at him. “All the time you spent away, all the time we could have spent together, because you were _working_ , because you were _so busy_ … what was the point of all that?!”

Dean’s face grew red as he let his arms fall to the side of his body, his hands balling up in clenched fists.

“Dammit, Cas!” he shouted. “I was trying to get you what you needed!”

“I don’t need more money, Dean, or a bigger house or… anything! I need a family! I need my husband!”

“I’m right here, Castiel!”

Castiel shook his head. His eyes were burning with tears of pure of rage, but his voice sounded calm when he replied:

“No. You haven’t been for a while.”

“Cas, wait up. Cas!”

Castiel didn’t listen. He turned around and fled the kitchen, up the stairs and into the studio. He closed the door behind him and sat down on the carpet, hugging his knees and sinking his face to drown out the sobs and scream of pure frustration, of pure grief that were coming out of him.

Dean didn’t come knocking this time around.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I know I said this chapter would be the last but, uh... yeah. It's not.

Castiel went downstairs early on Monday. He hadn’t slept well and the man that had stared back at him from the mirror was one who looked utterly exhausted. There were dark circles underneath his eye, his hair was in disarray and there was a fine, dark fuzz covering his cheeks and chin. Castiel had thought about shaving, but ultimately decided he didn’t have the time or the energy for it and instead got dressed to go to work.

Dean was in the kitchen when he went downstairs, moving around the pots and pans. It was odd seeing him there. Usually he would already be out the door by that time, but this time, as soon as he heard Castiel on the stairs, he turned around.

Despite how dejected Castiel felt, he couldn’t help but to think that his husband was a very handsome man. He was wearing dress slacks and a white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up as he finished serving the breakfast. His green eyes looked darker than usual, especially when he tried to smile.

“I… I made the coffee how you like it,” he said.

A part of Castiel, the pettiest part of him, had the impulse to tell him that he was late and he would have breakfast on his way to the college. But he reminded himself that if there was any chance to save their marriage, he needed to stay at the very least civil.

“Thank you,” he muttered. He sat on the stool in front of the isle and brought the mug closer to him, wincing as he did. His muscles, especially his neck and shoulders, felt sore and it was hard for him to move his arms.

Dean immediately noticed.

“Cas, you’re being ridiculous. Just come back to sleep in the bed.”

Castiel said nothing to this plea. Sleeping on the floor of his studio on the sleeping bag they had bought that one time they went camping wasn’t comfortable, certainly. But neither was trying to sleep next to Dean, staring at the ceiling wide awake, feeling like the man at the other end of the mattress (who wasn’t sleeping either, he knew for a fact) had betrayed him in the worst way imaginable.

He didn’t explain this to Dean. He simply kept eating his breakfast in silence.

“At the very least you could talk to me?” Dean suggested, though it sounded a little like a demand.

Castiel was too tired to deal with that.

“Sure, Dean. Do you want to talk about how you’re going to work on your hang-ups about fatherhood so we can have a family? Do you want to talk about how you’re going to spend more time at home so we can improve our relationship?”

"Cas..." Dean huffed.

"What exactly do you want us to talk about then, Dean? Because I don't know what else to tell you. This isn't something that can be solved as easily as you making my favorite coffee."

"Look, babe, I know you're hurt, okay?" Dean said. "I probably could've found a better way to bring this up to you..."

"Could you please... stop?" Castiel cut him off. "You had plenty of chances to bring it up to me and you didn't because you knew there was no way I wouldn't be hurt by it. You just didn't want to deal with me being mad at you."

Instead of admitting that Castiel was right, Dean stepped backwards and got defensive.

"Oh, so now you know exactly what I was thinking?"

"Yes, Dean, because I know you. Avoidance and denial are your ways of coping when there's something that makes you uncomfortable."

Dean rolled his eyes and turned his back at Castiel, but it was like a dam had broken and Castiel needed to tell him everything that he had been thinking for the past year.

"If we want to solve this, if we want to find a way to compromise so we can be both be happy, we need to confront this head on," he continued. "Even if it's painful."

Dean leaned back against the sink with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I'm just saying, but we wouldn't have to confront anything if you weren't so obsessed with this issue."

Castiel stared at him, his mouth hanging open in disbelief.

"So I'm supposed to let go of my desire of being a father just so you can be content?"

Dean opened his mouth, but Castiel's cellphone started ringing. He probably shouldn't have picked up when they were in the middle of a talk, but he honestly couldn't even look at his husband in that moment. He stood up and walked away as he answered the call without even checking the ID.

"Yes?"

"Call me Doctor Masters!" Meg's cheerful voice came from the other side. "My dissertation got approved with no changes and as soon as all the paperwork is done, I can officially add the three stupid letters to my name."

Castiel took a deep breath so he could conjure up at least a little bit of enthusiasm for her.

"That's great, Meg. Congratulations."

It didn't fool Meg for a second.

"What happened?" she asked, immediately.

Castiel glanced at Dean, who was still in the same position as before, his posture emanating hostility as he glared back at him.

"It's... kind of a long story."

Meg clicked her tongue.

"Listen, I got to go see my dad today," she told him. "But I'll drop by your office later and we can go for a drink or something. On me."

"I appreciate that, Meg, but..."

"No, no buts. I'm taking you out tonight, okay?"

She hanged up before he could protest any further. Castiel sighed and slide his phone inside his pocket before walking towards the door to pick his briefcase.

"So that's it, huh? _She_ calls and you peace the fuck out?" Dean asked him.

He sounded furious, even more so than he had been any other time before.

"Meg has absolutely nothing to do with this, Dean!" Castiel answered to him in the same tone. "But I think it says a lot when someone I met just months ago has been listening to me more than my own husband!"

"Well, I'm sorry you're stuck with me, then!" Dean shouted, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation. "I'm sorry I can't be the guy that makes you happy!"

Castiel looked at him for a very long moment, wondering if it was even worth it to answer to that.

"I'm late for work."

He marched towards the door without looking over his shoulder and without saying at what time he would be back that night.

 

* * *

 

There was something to be said about burying himself in his work to avoid thinking about his issues. As he paced around the classroom, reciting fragments of poems and biographical data from the author of the day, as he took questions from his students and wrote on the board until with his chalk-stained fingers, he almost felt like himself for a little while.

"Don't forget to start reading _On the Road_ ," he warned his students when the class was over and they started picking up their stuff and running for the door. “Keourac is trickier than it looks.”

Some of the students waved or smiled as they passed in front of their desk and that made his heart flutter. These were freshmen, mostly, just starting their academic career, and they were excited to learn, excited to read. Castiel loved teaching and wondered if he should go back to a high school the next semester. Teaching young minds might ease his paternal desires and it would be easier for him and Dean to work things out in the meantime…

“Excellent class, Professor Milton.”

Castiel turned around to see Meg walking up to him. He hadn’t seen her among the sea of students sitting. She approached him with her usual smirk on her lips and gave him a quick hug.

As always, all of Castiel’s bleaker thoughts flew away like a flock of crows that had been disturbed.

“Doctor Masters,” he said, smiling back at her. “How do you feel?”

“Like I want to get shit-faced drunk tonight,” Meg said, sitting up on his desk without a care. “You on board with that plan or do you have to go back to the ball and chain early?”

Castiel let out an awkward laugh and shook his head.

“It’s Monday, Meg.”

“And the last time I’ll have the chance to do something stupid and reckless before I have to start wearing pantsuits and discussing current events with a bunch of stuck-up snobs wannabe politicians,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“What do you mean?” Castiel asked, frowning. “What about your job here at the college?”

“We’re well into October. I’ll be luckier if I apply next semester,” Meg explained. “In the meantime, I’m going to be part of the team for the reelection of Senator Lilith Crowley next year. Nepotism at work, once more.”

Castiel understood every word she said, but he still had a hard time processing them.

“But… that means… you’re leaving town?”

“Only for a few months. It’s not a bad gig, you know. It’s just… spellchecking speeches and tweets before they go up,” she explained. “Don’t know why they need me to do it from all the way up in Washington, but there you go.”

Castiel backed against the board, not caring if his suit ended up with chalk powder all over it.

“Oh.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, immediately.

“Yes.” He rubbed his eyes. “Yes… it’s just kind of a lot to process.”

She tilted his head,

“You had another fight with Dean.”

It wasn’t a question.

Castiel tapped his fingers on the side of his leg, trying to find the words to explain it best.

“It was… it was different this time.”

“Hold that thought.” Meg raised a finger to shut him up and jumped down from his desk. “Let’s go.”

“What?” Castiel asked, but Meg grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the door. He barely had time to grab his briefcase. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere you can tell me about this with booze.”

Castiel was about to ask another question, but he saw Meg’s bike chained up to a lamppost right outside.

“Oh, no,” he muttered, paling. “Meg, no. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” she asked, defiantly. “Are you scared?”

“Yes, I am very scared and I have no problem admitting that.”

Meg threw her head back and laughed like she did when she found something extremely hilarious.

“Come on!” she insisted, walking up to him. She extended the helmet towards him. “You’ll never know if you never try it.”

Castiel thought that philosophy only applied to foods and new places. But he looked down at the helmet, he looked down at Meg’s face and decided he had nothing to lose after all.

He regretted that decision as soon as they started zigzagging through the traffic.

“Meg!” he shouted so she could hear him over the wind and the helmet covering his mouth. “Aren’t we going too fast?”

Meg, with her hair loose in the wind as the accelerated, just let out another laugh and took a curve. Castiel didn’t like the vibration of the bike between his legs, he didn’t like how hot and claustrophobic the helmet was and at every second, he had the sensation that they were going to fall and get run over. He held on to his briefcase with one hand and to Meg’s waist with the other for dear life and bite back all the screams climbing up his throat.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Meg announced they had reached their destination.

There were at least a dozen other bikes parked outside the bar, all of them just as big and shiny as Meg, silver and black. Meg gracefully parked hers between two others. Castiel’s legs were like jelly as he tried to stand up and he would’ve fallen in his face if he hadn’t held on to something in front of him.

It turned out to be Meg’s waist.

He immediately pulled his hand backwards.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, his face burning with embarrassment.

“For what?” Meg asked cheerfully. She lifted the bike’s seat to take out her chain and paddock. “Come on, that wasn’t that bad, was it?”

If Castiel ignored the deep panic in his stomach and the way he was so sure this was how he died, he had to admit that no, it wasn’t. He could almost, a little bit, _marginally_ , see why Meg would find it fun to ride such a vehicle.

She finished securing her bike and put her keys away.

“We’re just in time for happy hour, too,” she commented as she strode towards the bar. “You’re gonna love this place, you’ll see.”

Castiel had to wonder what exactly had made her said that. As soon as he crossed the doors, he felt like his suit, tie and trench coat combo was woefully out of place. Most patrons in the bar were dressed in the same style as Meg: in jeans and leather jackets, tall rider boots and studded leather belts. They were playing pool and laughing loudly, their conversations invading the air in an indistinctive rumor. Castiel had the impression that there were a lot of looks thrown in his direction as he meekly followed Meg towards a table.

“What’s the matter, Cas?” she asked as they sat down.

“I… I don’t know if I should be here,” he confessed, shifting awkwardly in his seat.

“Come on,” Meg laughed. “Sure, it’s not a hipster bar where poetry contests are held and French writers try to get in your pants, but the beer is good.”

Castiel remembered Balthazar’s attempts at flirting with her and laughed. Meg beckoned to a waitress passing by and ordered two beers.

“So… are you gonna tell me what happened?” she asked him, finally.

Castiel had been so busy trying to get used to the idea that he wasn’t going to see her as much that he had completely forgotten he had been sleeping on his studio’s floor for the past few days. After the waitress brought them the beers and he took a long gulp, he told her everything and like always, she listened to him patiently, nodding now and then to encourage him to go on.

“I wish I could say this was just another fight,” he concluded. “But… this is different. This is something… that I thought we would do together. I thought us having children was the future we were building towards. And it hurts that he doesn’t feel the same way.”

He finished his beer and without thinking, he gestured to the waitress for another.

“That sucks,” Meg said.

“Yes, well.” Castiel waited until the waitress was gone to keep on speaking: “Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps I’m too obsessed about it and I’m just…”

“Oh, bullshit!” Meg interrupted him. The vehemence in her voice took him by surprise. “Cas, I’m gonna be brutally honest with you for a second here. All these months? Every time you had a conflict with Dean, every time you wanted something that he wasn’t giving to you… you were the one who ended up backing down.”

“That’s not…”

“It happened with the couples’ therapy,” Meg said, rising a finger. “With the possibility of you getting a car, with the road trip…”

“We did go on the road trip!”

“When _Dean_ said you could and for as long as _he_ wanted,” Meg pointed out. “You went on the road trip on _his_ terms.”

Castiel gritted his teeth, trying to find something, some argument to contradict what she was saying.

He could find none.

“Having children is important to you, Cas. I know it is,” she continued. “Giving that up is going to make you miserable. You should stand your ground.”

Castiel tapped his fingers on the side of his beer bottle. She was right. Of course she was. And she wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know already, but he had been too close to see it.

And yet…

“But what if by standing my ground, I push him away?”

Meg sighed.

“Then I don’t know, Cas. That’s really up to you.”

That didn’t serve as much consolation. Maybe Dean would come to discuss it if he realized just in how much danger their marriage was. Maybe he would listen to Castiel…

Meg’s hand on his startled him. It was so small, her fingers were so thin and soft compared to his…

“If it’s any consolation, I think that Dean would have to be insane to let you go,” she told him. Her brown eyes looked clearer and kinder than ever. “You’re an amazing man, Castiel. He doesn’t know just how lucky he is to have you.”

Castiel’s cheeks burned at the compliment.

“Meg…” he began, but Meg looked away from him and called the waitress over.

“You got something a little stronger than beer?”

Five minutes later, Meg had down two of the five shots of tequila that the waitress brought them and her drunkenness was slowly starting to set in. She laughed a lot more for no apparent reason and started asking some very random questions, like which was his favorite Christmas movie.

“Why is that relevant?”

“You wouldn’t know how much it reveals about a person!” Meg insisted. “Come on, which one is it?”

Castiel had to stop and think about it. He didn’t think anyone had ever asked him that.

“ _It’s a Wonderful Life_ , maybe?” he suggested. “I think I like the idea that, no matter how small we think our lives are, we still make an impact bigger than we can even imagine.”

Meg let out something between a chuckle and a huff.

“And because it has an angel.”

“What does the angel have to with anything?”

“Well, you’re named after an angel, aren’t you?” she asked. “I researched it. You’re the Angel of Thursdays.”

“Yes, I was born on a Thursday. My mother thought it was appropriate. Why did you research the meaning of my name?”

Meg laughed again and pushed one of the tequila shots closer to him.

“Come on, you’re not letting me drink alone, Clarence.”

“Clarence?” Castiel repeated and then it dawned on him. “Oh, I get it.”

He picked up the shot but stopped before pouring it in his mouth.

“What’s yours?”

“What?”

“I will drink this,” Castiel promised. “But only if you tell me what’s _your_ favorite Christmas movie.”

“Aw, shit,” Meg muttered, rubbing her eyes. “Uh… _A Christmas Carol_ , I guess. Because unlike all the other lame Christmas movies, it has ghosts.”

“Of course.” Castiel was about to take the shot to his lips when Meg spoke again.

“And also… because you know, Scrooge changes in the end. He was like, this total utter asshole. But he changed and got his shit together. People can change. Even people who are the worst.”

Castiel tilted his head. He wasn’t sure Meg was talking about the character anymore.

“Have you changed, Meg?” he asked him, not expecting an answer.

Meg grinned at him.

“Why don’t you make it interest and I might spill the story of my life to you?”

Castiel accepted. Meg had heard him ramble about Dean for months on end; it was only fair.

Four (or maybe five) shots later, Castiel had found out Meg had grown in Massachusetts, in a big house where she had several nannies through her life, that going to a Catholic school had made her an atheist and that she used to be a troublemaker in her youth.

None of those things really surprised him.

“… and so my dad posted the bail,” she said, finishing the story about the time she crashed her brother’s car. “Tom couldn’t even look at me in the eye for months, he was so furious.”

“And what about your mother?” Castiel asked. “What did she say?”

Meg’s face grew somber at the topic, but she didn’t demand Castiel take another shot as she told him:

“Not much of anything. She never does. Her political career makes her happy. Happier than being a mom in any case.”

“Her…? Your mom’s the Senator?” Castiel asked, impressed. “I didn’t know she had children.”

“Yeah, my dad was her first marriage,” Meg groaned, leaning on the chair. “She remarried this asshole named Crowley. I can’t fucking stand him. We don’t talk a lot, you know? My mom and I. She wasn’t there when I was growing up and she didn’t like dealing with my… what she called them? My ‘juvenile antics’.” She drew air quotes and laughed as if it was the funniest thing anyone had said about her. But there was an undercurrent sadness in her voice she couldn’t quite hide. “I don’t want to be like her. When I have kids… I mean, if I have kids. I want to be there for them.”

“Yeah,” Castiel muttered. “What’s the point of having children if you’re not going to be there, right? Last time I talked to Luc, I told him as much. I might have used some profanity laden language too.”

“Oh, dear professor Milton swearing?” Meg asked with a laugh. “I can’t imagine that!”

“Kelly’s such a great mom and Jack is… he’s just the nicest boy,” Castiel continued. He didn’t know why he was saying all those things, except that he really thought them and alcohol had loosened up his tongue. “It breaks my heart that one day he might thing that his dad didn’t want him.”

“But he has you,” Meg pointed out. “And you’re… you’re so smart. And kind. And noble. And it… it sucks that you’re not a dad already.”

Castiel knew she meant all of that in the kindest way possible. It still hurt like hell having to hear it. He leaned back and rubbed at his face.

“What time is it?”

“Oh, holy shit,” Meg said, checking her cellphone screen and giggling as she showed it to Castiel. They had been sitting on that bar for at least three hours. Castiel laughed as well.

“How much did we drink?”

“Far too much. We might need a cab or an Uber or some shit, ’cause I’m not driving my bike like this.”

“And just when I was thinking it wouldn’t be so terrible if I’m too drunk to feel anything.”

Meg found this hilarious, because she was still laughing as they called the waitress and split the tab. It took them a few seconds arguing about numbers before they remembered they had calculators on their phones.

Castiel bumped on a table on the way to the door and muttered an apology to the startled people sitting there. Meg grabbed him by the trench coat and dragged him outside, still laughing uncontrollably at everything. Once they were outside, staring at the cold air in the night, they realized they’d forgot to call for someone to pick them up. Meg had to make several attempts at unlocking her phone.

“You need a car?” she asked.

“Where are you going?”

“My apartment. Duh.”

“Can I come too?” Castiel asked. “I… I don’t really want to go home tonight.”

If he had been sober, he might have realized all the ways in which that was a bad idea. His relationship with Dean was a very tense point. He was drunk and sad and feeling very lonely at that point. And Meg’s eyes as they rose towards him were just… just so bright…

“Okay,” she agreed. “Yeah, I guess you can stay a while.”

The car picked them up five minutes later. Meg had begun shivering and hugging herself by that point; her leather jacket was far too thin for that autumn night’s chill. So when they climbed in the backseat, Castiel didn’t even think about it. He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

Meg’s eyes grew wide with surprise at the gesture.

“Is this… is this alright?” Castiel asked, wondering if he made her uncomfortable. Meg blinked and licked her lips.

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

She sank her hands into his jacket to keep them warm and let her head rest against his chest. Castiel lowered his head, breathing in the scent of her hair.

She was so beautiful. She had come into his life like a storm, with her laughter and her cheekiness and her brilliant ideas. She had been honest with him the way no one else had been, she had been there when he felt completely desperate and alone.

And he was on the edge of something, he didn’t know exactly what. But when the car stopped in front of her building and they found themselves in the tiny space in the elevator, he realized suddenly that he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He stretched her hand and grabbed hers. Meg lifted her head to look at him.

“I don’t want you to go,” Castiel told her. Of all the things running through his mind at that exact moment, that was the only one that made a lick of sense.

“I have to, Clarence. I was never meant to stay.”

The elevator stopped on her floor with a rattle. Castiel followed her down the hallway towards her door, watching the back of her head, watching her struggle with her keys.

“What if I gave you a reason to?” he asked.

Meg turned around on the doorway.

“What do you mean?”

His tongue was heavy from all the alcohol and it would take too long for his mind to connect the ideas he wanted to say out loud, too long for him to explain her. Their time was running out and he couldn’t waste any more of it.

He lassoed an arm around her waist and placed the other on her head. And it was like gravity did the rest when he leaned his head forwards, trying to find her lips with his.


	6. Chapter 6

It was like kissing fire.

Meg's lips burned against his, her skin was feverish under his fingertips. She pressed her body against his with urgency; her arms were locked around his neck with an iron grip, pushing him down.

Castiel's head was spinning. He vaguely remembered stumbling inside the apartment, kicking the door close (or maybe Meg had done that) and pushing her against the wall right before he started kissing her again.

Like a magnet whose attraction he couldn't resist. Like a hurricane engulfing him in her winds. Like lightning sending electric shocks through every single cell in his body.

Like fire. She felt like fire, consuming him, burning away his thoughts and his fears, until the only think he could think about was her. She was demanding and passionate, opening her mouth to him, nibbling his lower lip every time they broke apart for a few seconds to catch their breaths only for his tongue to sink into her mouth once more, tasting the alcohol they had been drinking earlier.

He was vaguely aware that he had slid his hands up her shirt, to touch the smooth surface of her stomach and that she had undone his tie and was pushing his trench coat down his shoulders to help him get rid of it. He was vaguely aware that he was doing something very, very stupid and crossing so many boundaries that he should have been more mindful of. He was vaguely aware that when the fire died out and he found himself cold and rational again, he could regret this dearly.

It was just so hard to think about those things with Meg's hair tangled in his fingers and her soft moans of pleasure in his ears...

Bells. There were bells tolling somewhere. Somehow his alcohol-soaked and lust-laden brain managed to gather itself enough to recognize it was his cellphone ringing.

Meg placed both her hands open on his chest and gently push him away.

"You..." she panted, took a deep breath and started again: "You should... get that..."

Castiel didn't want to. He wanted to go back to what they were doing, to go back to that messy, fiery place they were into a second before and beside, his phone had stopped. He searched for Meg's mouth again...

The bells began ringing once more. Cursing under his breath, he let go of the grip he had around Meg's hips and picked up his trench coat from the floor. His cellphone was hidden in one of the pockets and he almost missed the call.

Almost.

"Where are you?" Dean asked on the other end.

Castiel had to take a few seconds before he answered, waiting for his heart to stop pounding and for his breath to somehow get back to normal.

"I'm with Meg," he said, because he saw no point in lying.

"You sound drunk," Dean pointed out. His tone was accusing.

"She's leaving town. We went for drinks."

"Where are you?" Dean asked again. "I'm gonna go pick you up."

"What for?" Castiel groaned. His reason was slowly, finally, catching up to the whole situation. He looked around, but Meg seemed to have disappeared further down the darkened hall of her apartment.

"What you mean what for? To bring you home!"

"Why the hell do you want me there for, Dean? To nag you, to make you uncomfortable with my obsessions?"

"That was not... Cas, you misunderstood..."

"I understood that you don't want the same thing as me, Dean," Castiel replied, firmly. "I understood that what I want isn't as important as what you want!"

"You know what? I'm not having this conversation with you when you're not even sober!"

“Fine. Call me in the morning.”

“Castiel, don’t you dare…!”

Castiel didn’t find out what he wasn’t supposed to do. He ended the call and not so delicately let his phone fall on top of his trench coat. He was dizzy and his legs weren’t working right, so he had to hang onto the walls to go after Meg.

The hallway wasn’t too long and it ended in a very cozy, small living room. Meg had turned on a small lamp that bathed everything with it’s soft, golden light. It was a beautiful sight.

Or it would have been beautiful, if Meg hadn’t been crying.

She was sitting in the couch, with her face hidden in her hands. Her shoulders shook with every sob she let out and she seemed smaller than ever and so, so fragile.

It broke Castiel’s heart. This was wrong in so many ways. Meg was strong and sarcastic and nothing ever got to her. It just seemed so completely wrong that she was… so broken up right now.

“Meg,” he called her. “Meg, please.”

Meg lowered her hands and looked at him as he sat by her side. Her face was red and her eyes were bloodshot, but she still managed to look so beautiful to him…

“Don’t!” she exclaimed when he stretched his hand to touch her shoulder. Castiel immediately pulled it back as she wiped her eyes and took deep breaths to compose herself. “Don’t, Cas. This is wrong. All of this is wrong.”

He couldn’t say anything to that.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I started all of this. I should never have…”

“No, you don’t get it!” Meg snapped.

She stood up and started pacing around the room, as if she needed to put some physical distance between the two of them. Castiel waited, uncomfortable and ashamed. All he wanted to do was hold her and apologize again and again for how stupid and reckless he had been.

Meg finally stopped on her tracks and turned towards him. The fierce decision he knew had returned to her features.

“Cat’s out of the bag, isn’t it?” she muttered, and the added, in a louder tone, so there was no mistaking her words: “I love you.”

Castiel sucked in a breath. He didn’t know what he was expecting her to say. But it wasn’t that.

Strangely, Meg smiled and let out a deep sigh, as if she had been holding unto that for a very long time.

“Are you shocked?” she giggled, leaning against the wall in front of him. “I don’t think anyone can talk to you for five minutes and not be a little bit in love with you by the end, Clarence.”

“I… Meg… you didn’t…” Castiel stammered and then went quiet.

Of course she hadn’t said anything. They were friends, he was married. She must have thought those feelings were unreciprocated and they’d forever stay that way.

And then he’d gone and kissed her. No wonder she was a mess right now. He rubbed the back of his head, a dull pain had started growing there.

“And because I love you… I can’t do this,” Meg continued. “If you cheat on your husband with me, you won’t be able to look at me in the eye ever again. And I don’t think I deserve this… no, I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve to be dragged in the middle of the mess that is your marriage.”

Castiel nodded. She was absolutely right. About everything. He didn’t feel guilty for kissing her now, but maybe it was because he hadn’t finished processing what it meant. He hadn’t realized what it all meant for him, for Meg… and for Dean, too.

But when it did…

“I’m sorry,” Castiel repeated, because that was all he could say at this point. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Meg. Nothing was further from my intention, I…”

He stopped, because he couldn’t explain what he had been thinking. Not without making an admission of his own.

But like Meg said, it was too late to back down now.

“I think… you have been here for me more than my husband has,” he confessed. “And I didn’t want you to leave.”

“I _have_ to leave,” Meg insisted. “I have to give myself the chance to fall out of love with you. Because while you insist on trying to save your relationship with Dean… well, there’s just no place for me in your life.”

And that was exactly the issue, wasn’t it? He kept clinging to Dean, because he was the man he had chosen to spend his life with. He kept clinging to him even when, along the way, something had broken between the two of them. Even when Dean didn’t want the same things Castiel did. Even when he’d met someone who understood him and wanted him and…

It was as if an epiphany hit him. He still loved Dean, deeply. But that hadn’t stopped him from falling for this wonderful, troubled, headstrong woman standing in front of him.

“What do we do now?” he muttered. He wasn’t sure who that question was directed to, but Meg answered it anyway.

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I really don’t know.”

Castiel didn’t want it to end like this, with Meg brokenhearted and him confused. He stretched his arms towards her, not sure if she would accept the invitation. After a few seconds of hesitation, Meg moved away from the wall and went to sit by his side. They embraced in the soft golden light and there was nothing left to say.

 

* * *

 

There was no much sleeping that night. At one point, Castiel stood up to retrieve a box of tissues for Meg form the bathroom, but other than that, they didn’t leave the couch. But neither of them could sleep for several hours, so they just cuddled up together, wide awake and silent.

There was nothing sexual about it, either. That was a line Meg had made clear she didn’t want to cross and Castiel wasn’t sure he could have, even as angry with Dean and as deeply in love with Meg as he was.

At one point in the night, Meg’s sobbing finally stopped. She was lying on top of Castiel, with her face buried in his chest. Her breathing finally became deep and calm and when Castiel lowered a hand to her waist to hold her better, she didn’t move. He was so relieved she was resting at last that he turned off the lamp and he too closed his eyes for a moment, just to see if that would relieve his headache.

When he opened them again, there was daylight seeping in through the open window. One of his hands was lying on the carpet, while the other still held Meg tight against him, as if he refused to let her go. His headache had become a soft, pulsating pain in the back of his skull. He moved slightly and Meg raised her head, blinking and looking around as if she was startled. She then saw him and the events that had transpired the night before seemed to come rushing back to her.

“I, uh… I’m gonna make some coffee,” she croaked.

“Can I use your bathroom?”

“Yeah, sure,” she mumbled, already walking away from him towards the kitchen.

After relieving himself, washing his face and rubbing his teeth with toothpaste, Castiel felt a bit more like a human being again. Though that claim could be contested. His unshaven cheeks looked even darker than before there were bags under his eyes and his clothes were creased and stained. After rubbing a black spot on his shirt, he realized it had come from Meg’s make-up.

He took off his tie and sighed deeply. There was no point in avoiding it, he supposed.

Meg didn’t look in much better shape than him. She also had dark circles under her eyes, her lips were pale and her hair, though she had clearly ran her fingers through it in an attempt to brush it, looked disheveled and bushy.

He still marveled silently at how beautiful she was before taking a step forwards.

“Do you need help with that?” he offered.

“No, I got it. Just… sit down,” she told him, without even looking at him.

Castiel picked up his coat and his phone from he had dropped them. The battery was almost completely drained, but the screen still lived long enough for him to see it was almost noon and that Dean had called four more times after their tense conversation the night before.

“What are you going to tell him?” Meg asked, guessing correctly where Castiel’s thoughts were.

“I’ll have to think about it.” He moved a chair back and sat down. He had to resist the urge to sink his face on his hands and refuse to confront whatever that day would bring. Instead, he raised his eyes at Meg and tried to smile. “When did it get so complicated?”

She sat down next to him and slid a mug of black coffee towards him.

“I don’t know, Clarence. I just wanted to finish my damn doctorate.”

Despite the circumstances, Castiel chuckled at that. They sat in silence drinking their coffee. It was almost pleasant, like the eerie calm after a storm, when they were looking at the wreckage and the ruins. It was almost stunning in what a mess this all was. Castiel watched Meg’s hands closely and had to resist the urge to stretch his and grab hers again.

“I’m gonna be packing for the next couple of days,” Meg announced after a while. “I was going to leave this weekend, but I think I might make that Thursday.”

“Meg…” Castiel started, ready to tell her he hadn’t really meant to disturb her life in such a way and make her so uncomfortable, but Meg shook her head.

“Listen, I think we both need some time. So it might be best if we don’t talk for a while.”

“Oh,” Castiel muttered. He hid his uneasiness at those words by gulping down the rest of his coffee. “How much time?”

“I don’t know, Cas. Make it Christmas or something.”

“Very well.”

And there was really nothing left for them to discuss.

They rode the elevator down in silence and Meg opened the door for him. Castiel blinked at the busy street in front of him and turned to look at her. One last time.

“I think…” he started and stopped. It was a silly thought, but Meg tilted her head at him with interest.

“What?”

“I think… we had a problem of timing,” he said. “You came into my life too late. Or a little too soon, perhaps.”

Meg didn’t answer to that comment.

“Goodbye, Clarence,” she said instead.

Castiel watched her walk away until she disappeared behind the elevator door. Only then he moved towards the street and hailed for a cab.

 

* * *

 

He was half-expecting Dean to be home, sitting on the couch to angrily demand an explanation from him. But when Castiel opened the door, he found the house completely empty. He felt disappointed, though he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he was expecting that Dean being there was a sign there was hope for them after all.

That might have been too naïve from him. But at least this way to do everything he needed to do.

He showered while his phone charged and then called the college to tell them he was sick. His voice must have sounded terrible, because they had no trouble believing it.

He hesitated for a moment. He couldn’t call Kelly, it would be imposing on her and she had her hands more than full with her two jobs and Jack. Gabriel and Kali lived in a bigger house, but Castiel didn’t want to deal with what his brother would say. So in the end, he called up Anna.

“Yes, of course,” she said, when Castiel finished his request. She didn’t sound too surprised. “Did something happen?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you, Anna. Thank you.”

Then it was just a matter of doing the rest.

He couldn’t take all of his books with him, but he put _The Waste Lands_ along with his computer in the bottom of his suitcase. He placed most of his clothes on top of them, his dress slack and his shirts and ties. He still had to go to work, no matter what else was happening in his life.

Thinking about that reminded him of his briefcases. Where exactly had he left it? He didn’t have it with him when he went to Meg’s home, but he couldn’t remember if he’d forgotten it in the bar or if he had it with him when they went to catch a cab.

He almost picked up the phone to call Meg, but at the last second, he desisted. She had asked for time and he had to respect that. And he also needed to use that moment to figure things out for himself.

He closed his suitcase and took it downstairs. For a while, he thought about going upstairs again and catching some sleep. But the couch was right there, so…

He woke up to the door banging loudly. Dean’s keys jingled as he tossed them aside. His green eyes were dark with hostility when they fell on Castiel and then on his suitcase.

“Hi, babe, I’m home,” Dean said, in a mocking singsong tone. “Did you have fun last night with your _friend_?”

“Dean… don’t do that. Please,” Castiel begged.

“Do what?” Dean snapped. “What am I supposed to say after the stunt you pulled on me? I was worried sick, Cas!”

“I know,” Castiel sighed, standing up. “And I’m sorry about that, for what it’s worth.”

“And what’s with the suitcase?” Dean asked, narrowing his eyes.

Castiel knew that Dean understood what was going, but he was asking him to say it out loud. And to be fair, Castiel should.

“I’m… I’m going to stay with Anna for a while.”

Dean huffed as if he was very irritated with him.

“Unbelievable,” he mumbled as he walked past Castiel towards the kitchen.

“You’re not going to say anything?” Castiel asked, following him.

“What, Cas? You want me to cry? You want me to beg you to stay?”

Castiel did want that. He wanted to know that him leaving would hurt Dean, if only just a little. He wanted to know that their marriage had meant something to him. He wanted something else that just the fury he was getting.

But Dean didn’t seem capable of giving him anything else.

“The way I see it, you’ve had one foot out the door for a while,” he continued, slamming the refrigerator door close after taking out a beer. “We have one bad year and you’re ready to throw a decade of our lives the second some pretty girl bats her eyelashes at you!”

“It’s not like that, Dean,” Castiel tried to say. “Meg has nothing to do with this decision.”

“ _Sure_ she doesn’t,” Dean shot back and took a gulp of his beer. “Did you fuck her?”

Castiel stepped backwards, horrified.

“Why would you ask that?”

“I have the right to know, don’t I? I should know if my husband is a cheating asshole or not.”

Castiel close his eyes for a second. He was expecting Dean to be angry, of course, but this… this was how Dean really saw him. And it hurt to know the man he had shared so much of his life with had that opinion of him.

“No, I didn’t have sex with her.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?”

“I did kiss her though, but we didn’t go any further,” Castiel confessed.

“Changed my mind,” Dean groaned, turning his back on Castiel. “I don’t want to know anymore.”

“I’m not leaving you for her, Dean. I’m not sure if she even wants to see me again,” Castiel continued, even though Dean had made it very clear that he wasn’t listening. “I’m leaving you for me. I’m not happy. We don’t want the same things. And I… don’t like the person I am when I’m here. What I did last night was extremely selfish.”

“And what you’re doing right now isn’t?” Dean shot back, finally glaring at him.

“Maybe it is,” Castiel admitted. “And that’s exactly why I have to go. I don’t want us to hurt each other any further. Despite everything, I don’t want you to hate me.”

Dean huffed again and ran his fingers threw his hair as he paced around the kitchen for a moment. Finally, he stopped and fixed his eyes on Castiel.

“Well, you do what you gotta do, Cas,” he told him, though his tone denoted his barely contained rage. “No one’s keeping you here. But if you walk out that door, you better be ready to not walk back in.”

It felt like a punch in the stomach. Castiel knew there was a possibility that Dean would say something like that. It still was painful to hear, because a part of him still held on to the hope that Dean would respond to the ultimatum. That he would ask him to stay and they could work things out after all. A single word, a single gesture for him would have been enough to convince Castiel to stay.

And Dean wasn’t willing to even give him that.

It hurt.

But it was the least thing Castiel needed to make up his mind.

He grabbed his suitcase’s handle and left his keys on the coffee table before heading for the door.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

Dean didn’t reply, but Castiel felt his eyes boring into him as he closed the door behind him.

In the following weeks, he would have time to think about that last fight at length. He would have time to wonder if Meg being involved in his life made a difference or if she’d just expedited something that was already bound to happen. He would have time for grief and for anger.

But as he walked down the empty street heading for the bus stop, he already knew that that there would be no time for regrets.

 

* * *

 

The snow came early that year. It covered the city and closed the roads, it made people angry and impatient and it made Anna’s balcony wet and dangerous. Castiel still stepped out that night, feeling the snow crunch under his shoes. He stood there, next to the fairy lights Anna had hanged on the rail, staring at his phone for the longest of times. Finally, he gathered up his courage and pressed the call button.

It rang so many times he was starting to think she wouldn’t pick up when her voice came on.

“Hello? Who is this?”

It was the same raspy whisper, the same intonation and the same emphasis on the ‘s’ he knew so well. His heart began pounding rapidly as he took a breath of the cold night air before he spoke:

“Hello, Meg?”

“Castiel?” she exclaimed.

There were rumors and voices coming up in the background.

“Is this a bad time?”

“No, hold on,” Meg told him. She apparently moved elsewhere, because after a few seconds, the background noise died out. “I’m just at a fancy fundraising bullshit dinner party. It’s… knock me down with a feather, Cas, I was not expecting you to call!”

He had a clear mental image of Meg in a black dress, hiding away somewhere to take his call.

“You told me to call on Christmas,” he pointed out. “And I know that’s technically tomorrow, but I didn’t know if you were going to be busy and… I missed you.”

There was a long pause and then, like no time had happened, her laughter came on. Castiel’s relief came out in white spirals from his mouth. She wasn’t mad that he’d called.

“You change your number,” she commented when she was done laughing.

“Yes. I filed the divorce papers a few weeks back and Dean… he didn’t take it well,” Castiel explained. “So, I had to change it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was for the best,” Castiel sighed. “Though by the things he said, I’m thinking it’ll still be a while before it’s finalized.”

“He’s realizing the huge mistake he made, huh?”

She wasn’t entirely wrong. After he had left home, Dean had finally caved in and asked him over and over to meet him up, to talk to him, to patch things up.

But for Castiel, it was simply too late. They had nothing left to talk about. They didn’t even had to discuss who would get the house and appliances and things like that. Castiel wanted nothing from that place, except his books. The only reason it had taken him so long to file the papers was because he was looking for a good lawyer.

“I don’t know what’s going through his mind,” he admitted. “I don’t really care, either. I’m… I’m moving on.”

There was silence on the other end at that affirmation and Castiel realized that, as always, he was monopolizing the conversation by talking about himself.

“How are you? How’s Washington?”

“Cold,” she said, with a laugh. “Boring. I miss my bike. I had to leave it with my brother when I moved up here.”

“Are you riding something safer these days?”

“I’m welcomed to request my mother’s chauffer whenever I need to, but I will be caught dead in a subway train before I do.”

It was Castiel’s turn to laugh. He really had missed her biting remarks and her cheekiness.

“Can I come and see you?” he asked. He had planned to leave the question for later in the conversation, but he was done pretending that she hadn’t been on his mind every single day since she left. “Not now. For the spring break. I’ll have some time and I’ve never been to Washington.”

There was another awkward pause. Castiel closed his eyes, half-expecting her to say that no, that she had met someone else, someone who wasn’t involved in a messy marriage, and that she wasn’t thinking of him and didn’t want to see him…

“Yes,” Meg said in the end. She giggled, almost as if she was thinking something very fun. “Yes. That would be wonderful, Clarence.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked this fic, you can vote for me to write a sequel [here](https://goo.gl/forms/pNPHuaON2bpqfxBC3) until December 15th 2018!


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